you'll hear from six extraordinary women tonight. we do as an opening statement -- will you give us an opening statement/ >> thank you. i'm from palestine. i have this chance this>> 22 years a complete -- 22 years ago, it was a month after my marriage and i had been arrested for peaceful action.

i sat in a cell waiting to see what would happen to me. when my back began to hurt, with soldiers took me and and cuffs. israeli doctors there did not hesitate. he told the soldiers to remove the cuffs and the hospital. i was no more or less than a patient he needed to heal. when the doctor examined me, he found out i was pregnant. thanks to him he asked them to release me immediately. it was done next day. the doctor is that kind of person i have met often in the conflict. israelis and palestinians

connecting with one another as human beings. living next to one another in peace, to people, two states. in conflict, not every encounter is easy. but i remember the day i finally new that the only way forward was through peaceful [unintelligible] if i had been invited to a

memorial service of the man behind the plo's participation in the peace conference of 1991 again, i was pregnant. by the time i return home that night after walking 6 kilometers in he, i start bleeding. i was taken to a hospital in jerusalem. the baby was born early. i was allowed to leave the hospital after four days but my tiny daughter had to stay. living in an incubator.

can you imagine how i felt? i went home through the checkpoint. at the checkpoint the next morning, the soldiers refused to let me through. for the next 40 days, i walked the three hours every day through the mountain to get to hospital and feed my baby. i carried with me milk i had pumped it during the night. meeting of those soldiers was not meeting the kind doctor or many israelis i worked with for peace. this still, i said to them, and

spite of what you have done to me i can work with you. the women of israel and palestine no we do not need to destroy others. we need to live with that and we need to understand we have a stake in the future. we must speak to one another face to face and ultimately, we must trust one another. i know this can happen. it already has.

[unintelligible] we want to reach the school and doctors for our children. in our part of the world, women have been driving change because we are not ashamed to care for others. we were not afraid of giving without taking in return. in arabic, we have a saying -- women are like the devil, very strong. when they say they will do something, they will do it. in spite of all of the obstacles. if you think this is important

in daily life, consider how important it is in negotiation and issues of life and death war and peace. we are remarkable communicators. we listen to people. understand different points of view. that is why we can build relationships. when i see a boy walking to school, i pick him up in my car and give him all left. it doesn't matter whose child is. he is part of the community and i care about him. only with this mentality can negotiations be accepted by

people whose future the world affects. that is a key that is missing. women make a difference, not just at the negotiating table but after work. when they bring their agreement back home people and that communities can understand and accept the peace accords. how you create peace or not. but we cannot do it alone. our work must be tied to the highest level. they must value peace in that to

include who can be more creative. if i want to improve life for my children i must insure future for the other site. otherwise, the price is too high. i am not speaking as a woman of the elite who has watched events from far away and has no understanding i know what has

happened in this conflict. i have seen it myself. that is why have a clear vision now my israeli partners and i see that on this path the future is them across the bridge -- working with one another with the people and with the support from the international community, women can turn on the lights. thank you very much. [applause] tsk>> i know each of you have

biographies and i'm not going to read each one to you. she's a spectacular spokeswoman for the palestinian groups that once so much and committed to working with israelis. i will tell you that group has gotten smaller and smaller as this conflict has gone on. i have an enormous appreciation for her for coming in being part of the gathering. you will see she has been very involved with the palestinian government in many different ways. we're going to have a conversation now and let me introduce a battery of a spectacular afghan womens'

network with 5000 individuals. she's very well none of across afghanistan but internationally now because she has been in the major organization in the various conferences where the future of afghanistan is being planned and created. thank you for coming. next to her -- as you see from of the biography, she has been working in an academic setting but has been called upon to be more and more involved at the community level a community- based. she has published many books and articles but her most effective

worked that is really capturing the imagination of people in this country and around the world is when she goes into territory that the un is off limits to the u.s. because of the power of the extremists in those areas. she goes into do the work turning those families and young men around. next are you the only three- star general israel has had? up until now blazing the trail. 24 years in the israeli defense forces and then became the

commissioner of the israeli prison service. you can imagine what a dicey role that is. she is than the first international vice-president of the international correction in prison association which has 600 professionals from 75 nations. she has an international profile. next, from sudan what a beautiful countenance and beautiful story you have to tell us in terms of your work in sudan. she's a researcher and former lecturer. some of you know of the all women's university there, very powerful in terms of preparing women all across the country.

she is the coordinator of the sudanese woman's power for peace. it is hard hard, hard doing this work and saddam. -- doing it this work. we had to meet in the back room of a pizza parlor. this is not the kind of place where you get a room and a hotel for a conference. i have enormous respect for you for the risk you undertake to do your work. she is the deputy minister for

education but she will remind you that it is the newest country on earth from south sudan. has she seen it all. a freedom fighter in the bush, off and on for 10 years. the stories she can tell. i don't want to take any more time. people are here to hear from you. if i could simply put questions out, these are for conversation and discussion and we will then open this time for questions and answers as we always do. this question is always on by mind.

when you think about the context in which you are all working on, it seems to me that the laws, traditions and cultures you are living with our oppresses they're very limiting and people say you have to be culturally sensitive and should not be trying to get women to do things that are illegal or whatever. can someone speak to that issue of culture and how that affect your work? >> [inaudible]

we have a lot -- we have a law which says whoever wears and decent clothes in a public place will be punished with whipping, 40 lashes. so many women suffer from that every day because it does not define what in decent clothes. it is up to the police and security person based on his background on what women shall wear. this puts so many women at risk every day.

i will tell the story here about a journalist that happened two years ago. she was arrested and they to occur to court. she was courageous enough to invite everyone to the court. the security people did not a lot less to attend the court. we're all standing in front of the court. we have to see what is the court to do. thisthey arrested me with 42 ladies.

we are all falling on each other. one of the ladies broker arm and others were injured. at that moment, some of the women managed to take pictures and send the name of the ladies in that car to the all of the lawyers and activists and it was very, very fast. when we arrived to the police station, we are not going to communicate these people outside. when we went inside, it was a very small room with no windows

just a door. i saw many of the ladies and i said did not -- [inaudible] we stayed there for, and ours. i feel very much the solidarity feeling among us. they asked a question like your name and your address and i asked us what is your tribe that you belong to?

we all answered the same answer, that we are sudanese. i think they got that up with the trouble we got inside. they asked us to write an agreement saying we're not going to do that again. it was the most interesting five hours i spent. [applause] i must say they had them badly and they were saying what do you have to do and why are you

standing with them? >> it sounds like all women are this way or all men are that way when you hear these statements. sthere are many, many men who are more peace-loving, if you will that many women. there are some differences in how people act, but thank you for raising that. this must be so interesting to you to be hearing how they have the extra some --

>> [unintelligible] i have been hearing what you have said and i am thinking about women and differences but i have two basic assumptions to share with you before i get to the point. first of all, we are sitting all with our traditional dressing. i'm wearing my traditional retirement general suit. the second assumption i would like to share with you is because we don't have enough time, the difference between women and men is a

generalization of the issue. you cannot get into detail and i would say there are differences. from my personal experience, i have been a commissioner of the israeli prison service. from 2000 until the end of 2003, which was a time of the second intifada. within less than three years the number of what we call security inmates has been risen from less than 700 to almost 4000. there was a need to find some human resources to deal with such a huge number of new inmates within a very short while. i will get back to the point by

the end of what i want to tell you. speaking about abilities and qualifications and skills. i can share with you the knowledge and experience women bring to the table some kind of different skills, mostly what we call soft skills. the first point i want to share with you is the ability to share the whole picture but at the same time, give your attention to the details. it came from the very beginning because women raise the children and had to plan or have to do

their laundry or bring water from the river. everything simultaneously. there is a need it to be able to do it. it gives you an ability to see the whole picture and identify what is going on at the same time. a second what i would call soft skill is an ability to contain. first of all we contain our children. because of the fact [unintelligible] you have to deal with the children. usually we had more than one child. there are differences and you have to deal with it. that is the second soft kill women bring to the table. the third one is the ability to balance between all the day

balancing between career, family, i have to be here someone is demanding my attention on the other side, that is the way we are living. balancing -- i have shared with my colleagues here that sometimes it is like the person who is going on the high wire or in the circus, but there is one difference. he has a security network. we don't have it. before i would say the fourth point is being able to share your leadership with others, to work in a teamwork.

does not mean you aren't a leader. it doesn't mean when you are the only one to take a decision, you do it. usually, we share the information and give the people the opportunity to feel they are part of the decision making. not only those who have to implement it. i am not judging any thing. it does not mean it is better than or less than, it just brings to the table diversity a wide range of possibilities. what i am thinking about is when you bring men and women together the abilities come on this side and the other side and they bring up together in a synergy much better outcome and

i can share with you from my experience to last points with your permission. byatt told you there was a need to put more of these into facilities. there were two female wardens out of 20 facilities. there were eight wardens and a few others and a core function after seven years since i retired. when i was there, there were

only kernels. there were no high-ranking officers. when you are there, you have to do it because these women were talented. they have been there all the time. the last point from my experience -- i have met not very few men that have developed these soft skills. unfortunately, i have met not so very few women that have forgotten. we need to do it all together. >> when you increase the number of women wardens, did you see any difference and how -- he made these statements about

women in general but did you see it in the present? >> it is not only the wardens it is security officers. >> one of the reasons it calms the environments the characteristics you were describing -- >> [unintelligible] >> staying with this issue doesn't the danger of these situations stop you from being

able to do your work? >> this is so important. this is so much related to the work we do in afghanistan. i want to share a very special experience. it was june 2, 2010. kabul was quiet because the afghan government was hosting [unintelligible] of a group of us got in one car because of that only had access to the jurga tent.

we were going to meet some of the men who were coming from school where they don't actually sit with women in the same classroom. we had to go through checkpoints because the president was coming. at 10:00 the jurga started. it was in the middle of the president's speech that to rockets hit. these rockets, a little bit far behind the tent, but one rocket was just behind the tent. i got from my colleague who was

outside saying suicide attackers were trying to get inside it. it was a tense situation for all of us. we decided we were going to continue to stay because it was for two days. we took the risk and we did not know what was going to happen next and we had to face the challenge of actually fighting with our families and because my father was telling me don't go. but peace is so important for all of us. we are working hard and we are proud of what we are doing.

>> you have been able to get into these major conferences. is it hard when they go back home or our families proud? and today get criticized when they go back? >> it depends from family to family. i always use the word diverse. the way i a live, they don't live that way. it depends from family to family. >> [unintelligible]

>> when we were arrested, i told my mother in the morning. she saw it on the news that 42 ladies were arrested and she knew i would be one of them. >> you were a freedom fighter right? >> i was. it was not easy. >> it tell us about that. i don't know if the audience thinks i look like a freedom fighter. i knew would like to make a comparison moving from war to peace and looking at dangers and security and protection.

you are aware of the war broke out in south sudan in 1983. i got married in 1986. [unintelligible] it was not easy. it is real forest and there are animals and you have to look for a place where you can be secure and carry on with your work.

>> where did you sleep? >> you have to use your mind. you can use trees. sometimes we cut the trees. if you yearn for a mattress, you can get some grass and make a very good bet. it is your choice, what you like and what makes you comfortable. there was a time when there were airdrops for food for the people who were displaced.

there was a lot of danger. you have to look for food to eat. any type of animal or tree -- if it doesn't kill you, it is food. [unintelligible] if you are a freedom fighter you can get killed. the most important thing

[unintelligible] it was time for us women to work for pace at -- work for peace and advocate for peace with the communities. the beautiful part is how we created an awareness and vote for a peaceful south sudan. it is moving from fear into opportunity.

[unintelligible] we work on the slogans and messages that were very effective. your destiny is in your hands. it was a very effective. encouraging women to vote for their destiny. [unintelligible]

it was time to give them stability. it was time to give them independence and give them the hope they wanted to see. [applause] i'm a freedom fighter now. >> talking about the villages reminds me of the scenes i saw pictures of -- we work together for a couple of years. and you were showing pictures of you in the village and i think

you as a professor and researcher and than in the village. >> we worked in the areas that are hard hit by extremism. we worked at the community level to address extremism at that level. we came across some mothers who thought they should join us. [unintelligible] they did not trust us.

we build the trust with the mothers and they started coming to us and said yes we want them alive. one of the mothers who was courageous enough to take the initiative of calling me and saying my son has come back from a hideout but i don't know when he can leave the house. the mother was calling me from four hours' drive and i said it is really dangerous right now. the military operation was over. i said i will be there with you

and having my breakfast with you around 8:30 in the morning. i entered her house and sat with the sisters, the boys, and the mother on the floor of the kitchen. a cup of tea and i was just talking to this boy. the boy was shocked because he did not know there was this modern lady coming from islamic but. -- coming from islamabad. we hide our face like this and

this is actually how we feel we are secure. i sat with him on the floor and started talking to him. he was a very shy but one thing i noticed was very strange. there was so much sadness. you could see there was something in him that was very disturbing. i started discussing with him why did you join these people? are you happy? he said why are you asking me this question? where were you when we were going to hell and where were you when we had no food to eat. the food i can offer you now, i could not even provide this to my family.

they said you have the money for this. the story is a very long but i discussed it with the mother and a the boys who are with the extremist would dare not come to a woman like me. she transmitted that trust and the boy said he agreed that he wanted to go back to a normal life. this was the beginning of the

radicalization process we wanted to initiate in that area. we tried to bring him out from that situation and transform his attitude toward life as well as the way they were being convinced and the way islamic teachings have been transformed -- no where in the car ran its says you can go for society attack. is and forbidden. when you ask these boys what is meant by g hyde, they said the killing by the infidel and who is infidel?

-- what is meant by jihad. this takes a while to convince them that this is not their real islam. it takes peace and some -- it means peace and sometimes it takes weeks or months to transform the minds particularly those who have gone through a lot. we were able to transform, but this was just the beginning. we have placed them and society. the most difficult and challenging part for us today is the acceptance of the community and their reintegration of these boys back into their on communities. we had to build a better trust

with the community, but thank god we have been able to take back the 79 boys and we have placed them well and they are working in different places, a decent livelihood for themselves and have become very productive citizens. >> it is hope there is a possibility to make the process reversible. it is inspiring because you always deal with the radicalization and extremism and how to cope. maybe part of coping is preventing and doing things like you have done. this is acting like an angel. it gives us hope that there is

ways to change things, not only by force. >> i think we need to prevent it from happening again. >> i know there are huge efforts among the women here. several are working on the school and peace education and etc.. i want to open this up for questions, but first i want to introduce john from the christian science monitor. i appreciate particularly the

fact that you were willing to give the coverage that was so explicit and powerful and through the years you may have been the first reporter who interviewed us, maybe when i came here -- would you like to do the first question? i would love to hear -- you have been sitting there like a reporter. >> i can't think without a pattern. thank you. i just want to recognize me elizabeth award winner for the

wonderful article on peace building she's a very much in elizabeth's shoes. will you turn the might toward you? >> i wanted to pick up on the point that there is so much effort that goes into peacemaking and you've got to make peace and then you get to keep peace and then you've got to build peace. it does not take much to have that cycle of violence return. you have identified radicalization and the attempt to be radicalized young people. is there anything you have hit upon that helps to deglamorize

war in the minds of young men? that is something they are attracted to. have you have any thoughts about that? >> i need some clarification for what you have been asking. >> it just seems to me the whole idea of peace building -- it is complex and slow and you described a knitting together of societies, but there is an attraction among young men to violence and war. it does not take much attraction to simply ruined all of the work

that is being done a slowly to build peace. i wonder if the general could address this? watching people come there a penal system, is there anything that happens where you can see there thought changing and they actually begin to support the idea of building society rather than taking up a gun instead of doing those things? >> it begins and ends with education. if we have failed to that point, when they are in facilities or communities there is a need to try to find alternatives. even in the juvenile prison, you give them alternatives like playing soccer or doing lot of activities that will enable

them to be able to take all of their aggression and frustration and then give them new skills and abilities. how to deal with tension, how to work to channel your anger through a different way like art or reading or theater. at everything that will be a replacement -- sometimes they just want to be shown, to be influential. you can try to channel at 38 proper voice. sometimes it succeeds, sometimes not. >> [unintelligible]

i think that violence is a culture and the piece is also culture. in terms of including it in the curriculum -- >> it depends on the objective environment in the country. there are countries where people suffer from an justices. we wanted our independence and we were subjected to oppressive regimes and there was no way for people to pick up arms and say if it does not work, we are

going to tell you we are also strong and that is why violence is usually not good. tell them you have oppressed me too much but i am not for war. i want to move into peacetime. people meet democracies, if i could use that word in the general term. you need your rights. he mentioned the issue of peace education. if i go back a little bit, in south sudan, for example, we have a cultural wave of peacemaking and peacekeeping. but because we were subjected to

defending ourselves, you find youngsters in a cultural of violence and being angry or reacting. the peace culture is here and it is consolidated in such a way that peace and stability more than resulting to war. we want to include that in the curriculum. it takes a lot. you must keep on working on it and consolidating and building and making it stronger. let them think about it and let them follow annon-violent path.

>> . have a spectacular women -- women leader from sudan and south sudan and you were at war. -- your countries were at or for some many decades and then came back with a peace agreement with the referendum years later. the struggle between these peoples and you are now like sisters. i want to personally applaud you and say that the strength of your coalition is an example for the whole world. [applause] yes, we have a question here and a question there and please identify yourself. >> my name is asya, and i am at

the two-year program. i want to thank everybody for sharing a glimpse of your amazing experiences. it is inspirational. you told us about the experience of the rockets heading. i was wondering as an afghan woman, i am concerned about how the peace process will affect the fate and the fate of my daughter. if i have any in the future. i see the peace process may involve a couple of compromises one of which might be, with regard to women's rights and afghanistan, and we hear that the constitution would be followed but with so many details with a peace deal and have it taken care of and the afghanistan government is not even in the picture how you as a woman who has been in the

middle of all of this with leading a network of women organizations and 5000 personnel across the country what is your understanding and analysis of this peace deal and how hopeful i should be as a woman? >> thank you very much. very interesting question at the same time very difficult very technical, very challenging. thank you, i was looking for the word. [laughter] the peace process yes, it has started. the peace process is something that has come based on the recommendations. we go together in the jurga and we say we want to go for a peace process and we sat on a royal jurga to dictate how the peace

process would go. there's a change in the policy of our government. every day something is happening. i don't think asked and women's rights will be sacrificed. -- afghan women's rights will be sacrificed. this is what i have been saying. we had our greens guard scarves and we are meeting a number of dignitaries and foreign ministers and telling them that we want to be part of the development of our country. we want to see a real transition in afghanistan where we want to take the lead. we will be making mistakes, for sure but we will learn from our mistakes.

where i see the afghan woman now and where i have been saying them -- seeing them, don't worry about your rights. will not let it happen. -- we will not let it happen. [applause] >> we had a 11 women leaders from afghanistan who were brought here. there were all very involved with pulling this together. we put together 20 meetings in washington and they were featured on the news hour, etc. it was striking when one of the women said - i think a senator asked what we can do. we cannot have the taliban at

these talks. she said the taliban are our family. if my arm is hurting me or wounded or disease, i don't cut off my arm. put them at the table. put us at the table and in three days there will be a difference. that is something that we have a hard time understanding and imagining. please, sir -- >> thank you i am from bangladesh. one of the changes that happened to me i started asking all kinds of difficult questions. i seek your answer but i apologize if my question is

awkward. [unintelligible] how is the term freedom fighters transformed?

why are some freedom fighters and some are not. ? >> let me restate your question differently -- how do use a term like freedom fighter which is so positive in one situation and then you talk about other groups as terrorist? is that, in short? >> my understanding is i call someone who is a freedom fighter who is fighting for someone -- something that was taken away or he or she thinks that they are not allowed to enjoy. by that definition, i tend to believe that most of the terrorists whoalso have because they are fighting for but we

don't call them freedom fighters. i would like to see what is the difference between freedom fighters -- what is the bottom line? >> thank you for asking that question. i will see what comments you all have. you are living in this situation. i can answer in terms of my on my butt police -- >> -- but please --- >> when you say freedom fighter is positive. it means somebody is fighting and expressing and demanding their rights. because they have been robbed of their rights. that is how i also understand it and that is why i use it very proudly. by dawn want to go into details but with the liberation of south

sudan, it was clear in justices were very clear for us. the laws were imposed on us and we were never given time to develop ourselves and we're doing that now. when we talk about the construction and building, we say is nothing to reconstruct. there's nothing to rebuild. our resources were being robbed and siphon that even our oil. was being taken to a refinery. we are not given an opportunity to exercise our political rights so that is why we call ourselves freedom fighters. fighting for a cause but you are not fighting for the sake of fighting and killing somebody else for you are defending

yourself somebody who has come to rob you of your right, and you say no i will not allow you. it is a human rights. maybe to confirm -- if i were talking like 10 years ago you would have said you are like any other terrorist. you just kill others. today, we have been accepted at the negotiating table. we sat for years until we managed to reach the process of elections and referendum and independence and the new country has been declared. we said fine, we don't want to fight anybody else. that is what it means to be a freedom fighter. there are other groups that would want to fight -- if the other side of the corn and --

coin - 4 made it was fighting for my rights and the other side they were coming to take their rights and they want to encourage and your rights. they are the ones that want to fight. i think the difference is that someone wants to terrorize someone wants to impose their own opinions, these other ones were not freedom fighters. if you ask them what this is and why do you want to abduct children? they're supposed to go to school and grow, it is their right. they go and they are inducted were conscripted into a movement or an activity which, at the end of the day the young people are asked to go and commit to this.

their best to go throw bombs. this for me, is negative. it has to be clear even for us as freedom fighters. you must be thinking toward a solution. we have tried our best to do that in a political way and that is why i think having a positive is better. we do with information negotiation, and peace building. >> i agree with everything you said. i can also, very much, i think coming sympathize with your point of view in that question. clearly, there are very few people who say i am a terrorist. right? they feel like they are fighting

for a just cause and others are calling them terrorists. after the fact, terrorists become freedom fighters and freedom fighters will become terrorists. it is striking to me that the mainame of elizabeth was a call this evening because she works in rwanda and to work in bosnia. she died in iraq. i think she would be right with me saying that intervention should have happened much, much sooner and what we mean by intervention? we mean bombs and bullets. if you stand back -- and i was advocating for that as ambassador -- i was advocating

hard inside the white house for military intervention. what does that make me? when you get rid. were the least violent option is military intervention, what a failure. we should never be proud of that moment. when that is the only moment because we could have some have done something even putting our lives on the line is that wooded talk. if that sort would have taken. my sympathies are with you as to ask that question and i am very glad you asked. thank you. we can do one more. i am getting a sign from the

back. you were first. ok. sorry. >> i want to tell you all so much for sharing with us. as a journalist, i have been a guest in many communities in many countries that contend with conflict. over time, uther with cynicism and i did not hear any note of that tonight which reminds me that cynicism is a luxury for people to think about like and not people who are forced to live with it. that to me was very powerful. thank you. i was also release struck by what you said that after the war, you need to give the eggs back to the villages to power frye's what you said earlier i was struck because i have interviewed so many freedom fighters or whatever we call but now and once they have ascended to power and then lost power and

they talk about the right tower that they earned through fighting carried out about the responsibility that fighting gives to the people who helped you get there and i wonder if your mail freedom fighting colleagues share this perspective and what it looks like in that way from other countries? out, get more people thinking like you? after the fact? >> yes yes is it as easy for men to get to that point, as you described? >> i'm sure it is not easy. with respect to going back to

say that i wish we were not pushed into war ended fighting and then i don't want to say that women are the dozen men are the petals. no. if you fight for something we will go back and take responsibility. today, there is a government in south sudan and one of the examples i would give is how i think our government has considered this. women have advocated for a 25% of funds for women. if men were really completely thinking otherwise they would not have allowed that situation that we had today were managed to stride.

i believe in our rights and we have to take our rights. i remember when we home pointed -- when we appointed by decree in august, he said i know you women are looking at me, the prime minister. he said there are 10 of the you deputy ministers out of 29. that is more than 25% and that is very inconsiderate.

he said he is happy that he managed to give you your rights. you fought for them and they are your rights. there are quite a few of them who have a bond to the sec. i think that is very considerate. also, the area of development in general without government now developed key education. the most important thing i come back with a perspective from women. we have that soft still. skill. we sometimes seek areas that are not noticed by man. we talk about issues openly so we continue to sensitize.

we don't leave man out. if they don't have that sought to scale --soft skill we remind them that we need to give the chicken and eggs back to the community. they know that. it is part of the policy of the government. that reminds us. we will have to keep it on. we have to make sure that the building and sensitization is going on. you cannot govern people without giving them their rights and the abilities they need. it is happening with our government but we have to be vigilant and remind them and be persistent and we have to keep on supporting rights. >> a short comment maybe from a

social point of view, the first population our children, women and elders. women have that awareness and natural way because they can play both roles and our role is we make strong women. we might need to increase awareness. the next time, they will be able to do things faster. >> this has been fabulous. , as always. i am teaching inclusive security at the school and you ended your time in our class in is an extraordinary way. would you end to this forum?

i want you to do what you did. [applause] do it, do it. >> i think we need to celebrate the women who won the nobel prize. the problem with me is that i don't celebrate when i am sitting. i like to move. i celebrate the women. for you in the balcony are you together [? yes] do you have the energy? you have to have the energy. we will sing a song. we have done a lot of talking and it is time for you to sing. i am going to sing in simple

power back about women shining. man, you are also shining with us. [laughter] it goes this way -- i just want you to giwala giwala. when i mention your name, i will not remember all the names you just have to show us how you are really shining. ok? [hand clapping] ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ [giwala giwala]

[clapping] [giwala giwala] ♪ ♪ [giwala, giwala] kennedy school, giwala, giwala.

the general giwala, giwala. ♪ ♪ [clapping] [applause] >> thank you, at thank you so much. thank you, thank you.

thank you very. whoo! ok everyone, thank you so much for being here. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> today as presidents day, it is a federal holiday in most government agencies are closed and we have been pointing out some interesting facts about president on this day. george washington was obsessed with dental care, he had his teeth brushed every day.

millard fillmore had the first bathtub installed in the white house. global art cleveland had a rubber jawboned after cancer surgery. coming up on c-span four university presidents will talk about the economic impact of colleges and universities on local communities and a harvard economics professor to will talk about improving education and that will be followed by a discussion of the recent -- recently released john f. kennedy white house tapes. tonight on c-span former navy seal talks about his new book on the mission that resulted in the killing of a sum up. >> one of the things that got me off the bench to write this book

about was that by august, the factoids metastasized into a story that had the navy seals piling into their helicopters like the keystone cops after shooting it out for 20 or 40 minutes. finally shooting their weight to the building to the third floor where they wounded a man's wife and child and shot him in cold blood. that did not sound like a seal team mission to make. talking to guys that were there on the scene, this whole thing basically was over in 120 seconds. that is quite a different story. >> see his remarks as part of our present day prime-time lineup. it includes a debate on whether to prosecute wall street banks for mortgage fraud with former new york governor eliot spitzer and the assistant attorney general plus, hear from the

start her of late facebook page. it starts at 8:00 eastern here on c-span. four university presidents met in los angeles recently to discuss the economic effects of colleges and universities on local communities. over the next hour, you will hear from the heads of arizona state university, the university of southern california, houston's rice university and university of california-los angeles. [applause] >> thank you and good evening and i must apologize in advance because i will have my back to this side of the audience most of the evening. in recent weeks we have been hearing and reading of the imminent decline of american icon, the kodak co.. they were the dominant employer in upstate new york in rochester where the company's founder

george eastman gave $25 million on his deathbed in 1932 to the city's premier higher education institution, the university of rochester. it would be seven years later that the university he helped endow surpassed the company he helped found as rochester's largest employer. in cities across the country that is now a fact. universities that once played a supporting role to industry in the united states are now the primary employers in many cities regions and states and as a result they are being asked to take a leading role as economies transform themselves for global future. now more than ever, higher education is seen as a key to helping cities. the knowledge infrastructure provided by higher education institutions and in particular research universities is as important if not more so than the tax breaks and real estate deals conventional used to attract corporate headquarters and new factories. the statistics show how much the

university can do for a city and that is striking. in highly skilled regions where more than 25% of adults had college degrees in 1980, the population increased by 45% by 2010. metropolitan areas in which led to -- and with some lessons and% of adults had a great grew on average by 13%. as a result, college leaders like the ones we have here today are seeking closer partnerships with civic and business leaders to harness the university's strengths. the role of the university as the automobile factory of the modern economy is not embraced by a on campus or in city hall. tensions persist over realists -- real estate development. on campus, leaders are concerned that new economic development could distract and their institutions core mission. there were a bit civic leaders may harbor unrealistic expectations of the college's ability to create jobs and revitalize local economies. we are here tonight to discuss

those issues with four of the nation's leading university presidents. for this on my left is max m acias, president of university of southern california. he holds faculty appointments in electrical engineering and the classics. he is recognized internationally for his pioneering research on digital signal processing, digital media systems, and biomedicine michael crow is president of the arizona state university and previously was executive vice-provost of columbia university where he was professor of science and technology in a school of international and public affairs. he is the founder of the center for science policy, and out comes dedicated to linking

science and technology to optimal social economic, and environmental outcomes. david lebron has been president of rice university in houston since 2004 and prior to that, he was dean of the columbia law school. in 2010, he and his wife for selected by the greater houston partnership as the city's international executives of the year for helping make houston center of international business. finally on my left, from the other major l.a. university ucla chancellor gene bloch. i don't know when you have time to become president. a fellow of the american association for the advancement of science as a member of the american academy of arts and sciences he specializes in biology and he is the chancellor

of ucla in 2007 and previously served as vice president and provost of the university of virginia. once again please welcome our distinguished guests. [applause] i will start with a question for all of you. i think the title of this discussion is provocative -- can universities to save cities -- that is a big expectation for universities to fulfill. cities, having watched as industries and companies have left and others have downsized do they have unrealistic expectations of their universities which are after all, nonprofits? what is realistic and what is not realistic when it comes to how universities or quit cities? >> i would say that we cannot believe that universities can save cities. they can help save cities. they can have profound impact.

the largest impact they have is a graduation, the largest technology event that occurs in the city when well-trained students go out into the work force and add wealth to the city's technology transfer. there is an enormous impact on health care of cities. realistically, universities play a key role. they have to be part of the solution but there is some much that universities can i do because they have a core mission of education which takes an awful lot of faculty effort, research, and teaching. >> what is realistic and what is not realistic? >> i don't think the universities can save cities. cities are not really in any danger. in 2008, more than half the world's population lived in cities. in the united states 82% of the population lived in cities. that 82% is not really going

anywhere. the real question is can universities make the city's more competitive and make them more competitive on a global scale? the world has changed. it is no longer the nation state which is the only actor in the global arena. it is multinational corporations non-government organizations, and cities and universities. if we look to the future, i think cities will play a very major role -- universities will play a very major role in determining whether the cities in which they are located are going to be globally competitive. i really see that as the answer both in terms of what they can contribute to the economic advancement of the city but also what the university contributes to the quality of life in the city and the quality of governance in the city and the amenities of the city. i think we will see an increasingly close relationship there. >> michael? >> i think virginia tech and a

few other schools have been working on this concept of america's megapolitan areas above the size of metropolitan los angeles itself. there are regions of the country or about 80% of the next 100 million people that develop in the united states will live. those tend places, if you look at them, houston is 1, phoenix and tucson as one southern california is one and there are a few others and if you look at those and think about the competitive units around the world, shanghai singapore and start thinking about how competition will occur, it will occur much more on the basis of these regions that will occur on the basis of something we call a state or even something we call a nation. it will be within nations and

states that these mega-politans emerged. the role of them as not to save the cities because they are what they are but it is whether in the united states universities can be facilitate tiv of our mega-politans being competitive end at the same time as some concept of economic justice in the way the ball. we can be wildly successful with a small percentage of our population as we have seen with a lot of social and economic stress as a function of being successful technologically. how can universities be a part at every level of producing new ideas on the social front the cultural front the philosophical front the practical front, the technological front producing enough ideas to help these major places in the united states actually be places in

which social mobility is still possible and economic competitiveness on a global scope scale is still attainable. how we do that will be depended upon not just the universe is but certainly they will be a major actor. they will produce these people to help us move in that direction. if you look at where we are, we don't just want to save ourselves to anything other than ourselves great if we don't like the way things are now, it is because we have not yet produced enough of the good ideas to be able to create a better and more successful and more economically just place called a city or in this case the mega-politans. >> it is interesting you mentioned kodak. it was founded as a corporation in 1880, the same year that usc was founded in los angeles. when we refer to save the city,

it's i can change the question a little bit about how universities have made the difference in the growth of a city, i think everybody has to look at this area of los angeles. for the past wanted -- 100 years + you have three universities. los angeles would not be the same without these three universities contributing so much in the past 100 years. they have educated the talent, the doctors, the engineers the cinematographer is, the journalists - the city was growing from a dusty village in 1880 to one of the mega-regions that michael is referring to that has become today these

three universities who have educated the manpower and the woman power that the city needed to grow. also that was a natural impact that the university had. it was the intention of impact that we were very proactive to reach out to the neighborhood'ss and offer programs. we did it because it would benefit the city and therefore all of us at the end. >> we were talking before we started about some of the developments you guys are doing at usc. projects to get the most publicity our redevelopment projects bringing in retail and coffee shops and movie theaters. while such projects improve the curb appeal of universities for prospective students and faculty members and give the university exposure in the community, the

type of jobs they create are more low wage and not career- making. when we talk about colleges driving economic development is that what we are talking about or are we talking about reshaping the local economy which is longer term and much more difficult? >> that is part of it. you refer to our university village construction project that we are in the process of getting entitlements. this will be the largest development project in the history of south los angeles. when we do it in the next five- six years, it will generate 12,000 new jobs. 4000 will be construction and 8000 permanent jobs. we are talking about a sector of the economy where unemployment is 40%. out of the research, we have

research universities. there is so much research innovation that generates new businesses as start-ups. that innovation that will spin out of university campuses also makes a difference and the majority of jobs are high-tech jobs. one example is that out of usc we have 40 business start-ups that have raised more than $8 million in venture capital money and created thousands of jobs. >> let me take that question to you, michael. when you arrived in arizona 10 years ago, there is not much around and you spent time over the last 10 years redeveloping tempe and in phoenix. a lot of this is about curb appeal improving the look and feel of the surrounding

university. how much more difficult is it to transform an economy and finish was probably a place where the economy did not need to be transformed the. >> phoenix by comparison to los angeles is a new city and los angeles is an old city. we are only at about 4 million people. to put things into perspective these three universities represented here, by 1980, were well established powerful research institutions and we were not because you were in evolving slowly. we have emerged from 1980 until now it to a massive institution and a mass of research enterprise. because we evolved later and because we have been in different places in a different setting, the same model does not work for us. we have taken a different model which is one of building a massive university research platform and maintaining

admissions standards where as the university of southern california admissions standards are for 1950. the objective on our part in advancing the institution is to have an institution that is usually accessible across all segments of society to research > research level faculty. the challenge for us last 10 years has been to design the model and make that model work even in a moment of the great recession and even in the moment of the stresses and strains around higher education. for the most part, we have made huge progress and unable to do that. we're increasing the number of graduates that we are producing per year by 1000. we have increased the number of hispanic graduates by a factor of 10 in the same time for embedded that is not 10% more, 10 times more.

the model in our particular city, and here is to build a different kind of -- is the same species but operating in a different setting which is very large, highly distributed highly engaged across a very large cross-section of the economy and then research- intensive at the same time. that is the kind of economic driver that an emergency with the stresses and strains that phoenix has needs. that is the path we took. >> the university of pennsylvania is often held up as a pioneer of the university as a developer in the 1990's. there's a story recently where the current president said if we don't take on the challenge of redeveloping our part of the city, no one will. penn redevelopment is about west philly.

some mothers feel left out. you are both -- some others feel left out. is part of your concern -- is your biggest concern for your surrounding neighborhoods? how do you balance that against the needs of the larger city? >> we are a very different kind of university, almost the opposite of what michael described. as a well-recognized research university. we are kind of a power house university but any large city. employment is not what we contribute to the cities. we are only about 3000 people in the city perry we contribute something different. we are not located in a disadvantaged part of the city agreed if you go to a houston you would want to locate your university right where we are.

we have this wonderful location. we look beyond. we have issues with our neighbors and have to be concerned for them but we are committed to contributing to k- 12 education in our city. it is about education and ways we can educate leaders of schools in the city. that is the one thing we do. we have faculty involved in k- 12 education. our architecture is involved in designing houses with low environmental impact but affordable housing. when there was a national contest held on houses that did not use energy, our students design the best house they could that was affordable to the poorest population, not just the technologically advanced i think this is a lot of what people can

do. we tend to get focused on how many start-ups we can do which is a really good thing. we are factories of innovation but what should not be left out is what we can contribute to existing and maturing industry. the question i have been asking myself that i don't know the answer to is -- would the car industry have been different for example, if the university of michigan which is a fabulous university, had been located in detroit instead of an arbor. we see that a dialogue with the energy industry in houston, for example. the other thing that is forgotten reaches beyond our immediate neighborhood. how do we improve the quality of governments and a cigain a set? city? we are great at being critics. we make local government better. in houston some folks at rice

university professors or run the houston area survey which they have been doing for 30 years. houston is the only city in the country that has 30 years of longitudinal data about its population and what they are concerned about and what the issues are and how race relations are and how the population perceives the economy. this contributes to the quality of government in this city. i think that is an aspect that should not be left out them a. >> how do you balance things? >> we live an average -- affluent neighborhood. the immediate neighborhood is not the problem. our responsibility is for the entire communities so our focus has really been at a distance, working to route los angeles especially in trying to level

the playing fields k-12 assisting with schools. we started a community school. we make ucla accessible to a large number of students. that has been a lot of our focus. our health system extends throughout the city. a lot of our volunteer efforts with our health system and other efforts we do at a distance from westwood. westwood itself is getting a little shaggy. we are thinking about ways to improve west would but overall the neighborhood is in good shape. it is the city we have to focus on. >> let me returned k-12 education in a moment. there's a research agenda as part of local outrage. outreach. much of it is applied to research and some faculty members on campus don't

necessarily like a local research engine. how'd you get faculty jazzed and excited about participating in local research projects? >> the way we have approached it is to try to build something other than a generic division for the institution. we think many public universities have generic versions. they are there to serve a particular service within the communities. those visions are the same everywhere so we have worked on a unique vision, particularly the vision of inclusion and elements of our vision related to commitment to the community. we established a series of design aspirations for the institution to allow for and stimulate our differentiation. the last thing we want in a newer city, built in your university is to say let's look at what universe x did in the past so let's do that. one of the design inspiration's

we had is social embedness. we have this notion of social transformation very there is not an expectation that all of our 3000 faculty members will all of us a look at something and say i would like to do that. there is an opportunity for some faculty members to aspire to those kinds of areas of focus. we don't ask any faculty member in particular to do anything other than perform well as faculty members in teaching and scholarships but we have created opportunity where it is an aspiration of the institution to be more socially embedded. we have moved resources within the institution that we have acquired an redirected internally and focused it on these design aspirations for the institution. that has been permitted us to see a tremendous focus of our faculty energy on the problems

that are unique to our particular location without any one faculty member saying that another should not be doing that because you cannot say that to each other anyway. this has broadened the effective focus of the institution from a simple model to a more complex model, and more complex model that we have purposely designed. >> we know there is a perception of higher education that the academics live in their ivory tower and come off campus to lecture the townspeople on how to do things. >> we took off our roads before we came here. [laughter] >> how do you balance the history and culture of a city with faculty members and other people on campus who say this is the way we should do things? >> i have been there and you mentioned about my career path being a director of a national center in the 1990's.

in any entered the -- in any interdisciplinary center, we always look for neighborhood outreach programs that we can collaborate with the city or with various city entities. the environment at usc isi for noaland when a copusc is very entrepreneurial. there are collaborative projects applied research where faculty collaborates or do their studies in various neighborhoods and their collaborations with city institutions. you have to provide the right incentives in the space of the academy to get the will to do that. every year, when it comes to the

evaluation of the performance of a faculty member, the three most important components is the research activity, their teachers activity, and their service. this is not just service to the institution but service to participate in this neighborhood and city-related programs. we created these incentives in the annual evaluations of our faculty performance. >> a few of your mentionedk-12 schools and one of the biggest issues facing urban areas are the public schools. gene, you mentioned ucla runs a school that is one school within a fairly large public school system. how much impact can university have when it is running just one or two schools? >> that is one school that we are intensively running but we have hundreds of schools that we are helping. we are deployed throughout los

angeles. usc is also deeply involved and i think we can have a significant impact. we have to think more boldly and we have been talking about whether there are interventions. there could be students that don't learn fractions properly and don't do well in algebra and if they don't, they will not become engineers or physicians or scientists. there could be some discreet interventions. we can teach them fractions of their more comfortable. that would be very effective. we have to think larger in one weekend k in-12 but i think we're already having an impact. >> you will meet interest -- esther -- you will need into -- you on the international institutions. do you sometimes feel talking about the k-12 systems in urban

america, do students in houston feel that rice is attainable to them? when you think about institution serving their cities, one of the best ways they conserve the city is to provide a higher education to its residents. do you believe that people in houston feel that rise is attainable? >> our student body has become increasingly diverse. somewhat unusually for an aleut private research university, there's no majority in our student body. we have a significant number from houston, but it requires reaching out into the community in various ways. the ways that you think are frivolous and not important and bringing students and ford taurus and turns out to be very important. having professors go and talk about what they are doing an

astronomy or we are a center of nanotechnology. explaining what that is and inciting people about that. it takes a real effort and how we can help students catch at and have less privileges in their education. for us, as a small university, that's not going to be our major impact but it is important -- i am involved with schools here in los angeles and everywhere you look there are banners of colleges and every classroom is affiliated with a college. it is important to send that message at an early age. it is important that the students in those schools were

the least well-off populations are attending have a sense the best universities are attainable to them. >> one of the reasons there have been these tensions between universities and cities is over property taxes. you are all smiling. you know this going back to your days at columbia. as you develop more and more places where you are located you are taking property off the tax rolls. you are making payments in lieu of taxes. but that is not sustainable for the long run. we were talking about a property tax district. what's the long term solution? is it going to continue to be a land grab where universities

take land off the tax rolls -- that cannot be sustainable for cities. >> we have gone into an intensive partnership. we have major capital finance projects funded by the municipalities in phoenix scottsdale, tempe, mesa, we are negotiating one with a city called chandler, a big fabrication plant there. we have gone out a different path of partnership building where we proffer to the municipality a specific advancement of our relationship to a higher level of impact to their community and we stand for public discourse relative to the city. phoenix has invested $233

million along with private sectors to move three of our colleges to downtown phoenix. in mesa, it is larger than st. louis, and adjacent to phoenix. we have built an entire campus there for a second engineering school. we've done this not by becoming a engaged in arguments by -- but schering mutual objectives and then seeking investment. that is the pathway we have taken. >> we should not lose sight of the fact that as a university, we are in the business of educating people and doing research. we are not a real estate company. even if you acquire real estate

and like to build a building, we would like to meet the needs of research and education. we are also sensitive to the needs of the neighborhood. there was a study that showed the impact the university of southern california has on the city of los angeles is a $5 billion a year. every dollar we spend at usc has an impact of 80 cents somewhere else in the city. we are not an entity that is going to leave the city. we're not going to search for lower taxes somewhere else in another state. we are going to be here for another thousand years and beyond. >> you are in the entertainment

and sports business. you have come to that place without much of a choice. >> for the sports business company experience ucla and usc bring to los angeles, i think it's a good thing. >> that you don't need that nfl team. [laughter] >> we have to public universities and to private. do you feel more pressure to respond to community and regional and state needs? >> absolutely. >> at the same time, the state is giving you less and less money. >> one thing that characterizes

these extension programs -- we have an enormous extension program throughout los angeles. this is the kind of thing public's do that differentiate us and there's a sense of service at public universities that i am very proud of. you see this through extension. >> all of the elite institutions that are incredibly successful and there are a lot of mayors who would lead you to move to their city. the city held a competition and a california was there almost until the end. would any of you ever consider taking your model somewhere to help other cities who might be interested? >> i would never do that for

usc. >> why not? >> i draw line in the sand for a very simple reason. burger king, starbucks, pizza hut, a taste the same. whether you are in new york city, los angeles, bali, or shanghai. to take the university campus that we have at usc there is no way i can replicate that experience anywhere else. it's not going to be the same. therefore, i refuse to dilute the value and quality of the u.s. see the greek by setting up a campus some morals. -- the u.s. see degree. -- the usc degree.

>> we have programs in other places, but our number one design is to leverage the place where located. one of the things that has happened with some universities as they've become disassociated with the communities in which they are embedded in the people they serve. that this association and the hunt for greener fields, not to take anything away from anyone else, i think weakens the possibility of the emergence of the university as a powerful force for the success of cities and the success of our country. location is very important. the last that we want is all universities being the same. they share core values and process these, but they need to be different and engaged in a different communities. >> it is that easy for you to say because you are in some of the most dynamic cities in the country?

>> these are three of the fastest-growing cities in the united states. as a private university president, the commission of service is different from a public university these days. and we are very anchored in the community. we have permanent commitments billions of dollars of resources. one of the things in terms of the tax questions is that it's tempting to go after universities. unlike sports teams and industries, we cannot threaten to move and we will threaten to move. our experience is anchored in those communities, but the one thing i would say is if you step back and look at the landscape of higher education, the 4000 institutions of higher education, there are about 401 might call research universities

and then there are a more elite group of 200 of really powerful research universities. if you look at this industry and compare it to others, we are the most fractious and competitive industry and we often don't get credit for the fact that we're so intensely competitive. but there is also an element that is irrational in the way we are organized. i agree with my colleagues that we are not inclined to establish branches. one of the things you will see happen over the next decade is an acceleration of the level of collaboration between universities. more partnerships, more joint ventures, more joint research laboratories spanning the nation and the globe. it we have to find ways that rationalize education and recognize the mobility of our students and the need to bring

multiple experiences. i don't think you'll see as much multiple campuses as you will see more and more intense collaborative relationships between universities. >> not only are you in dynamic cities you're leading a fairly well-to-do universities. i know you want to be more well- to-do, but you all have a fairly large endowment. you always want larger ones. is it possible for smaller and -- smaller universities that operate on the margins to do what you are doing? is there only a certain class of universities that able to engage with the community? >> their research piece is demanding for small universities resource-limited universities because of is expense of.

the infrastructure is extremely expensive. there is a scale issue at a challenge there. to the extent technology can spin off and benefit communities, that is something largely decided by the institutions because the cost is so high. >> the only thing i would add is that every college and never university, to be true to its design from the greek academies all back to -- if you end up at a place that is not teachers dollars, you -- it's not quite a college or university, it is something else.

i think many, if not most do that. >> i think we want to be very careful what we aspire to. this landscape of 4000 institutions of higher education, one of the most important pieces of art the community colleges. they provide incredibly opera -- they provide incredible opportunities at very low cost. we have different kinds of private and public universities that all perform at different levels. if we ended up with all colleges and universities wanting to be research universities, we would not be providing the brett that opportunity we need to increase

the availability and the way to do that is not necessarily to build more research universities. >> the california master plan was brilliant. the idea of partition a state colleges, community colleges research universities. community college these represent a major theater -- community colleges represent a major theater. one thing we're struggling with is trying to keep more university graduates locally. you have had tremendous growth at arizona, so i will start with

you. is that even an important goal? >> that is too simplistic. too parochial. diversity's need to produce fantastic graduates. to think that she need to keep graduates in a particular place -- >> i don't have this problem in california. [laughter] they don't like our universities because they have very little chance of recruiting our graduates. . >> this is true. he is telling the truth. [laughter]

>> the answer is what they should be doing is creating an environment that is conducive to all kinds of exciting things happening. >> for the record, i want to say that despite the reputation of southern california, houston has a great weather particularly in july. [laughter] i would look at the flip side of this. the role of each of our universities in attracting does not from the city and region to come to the region. we should not be worried some of our students want to go elsewhere. houston is a city of immigrants.

that is part of what makes a global city great these days. it's one of the essential roles of a university, fostering diversity domestic diversity and international diversity and that contributes to the global competitiveness of our cities. >> we will be going to the audience in a few minutes but i want to go back to the faculty for a moment. presidents come and go, sometimes by choice. community's leaders come and go. if all of the development efforts are led by those sites you sometimes have and have them fled to this stuff. how important is getting the faculty really involved in these

efforts? >> it is important to create an environment where a faculty member is not dramatically -- robotic we prescribe it -- they can look at a broad set of questions and problems and one wants to make encouragement and we have done this. we won a scholarship as a ballet -- as valuable as a curiosity- driven scholarship and that is what we're trying to encode, a broadening in a sense of our genetic design. we think things will happen as a function of broadening the design for the institution. >> the key here is that it has

to become part of the those of the university. presidents come and go and administration that elected officials come and go. however, if you create a culture, the future administrators will continue the path already shown by previous leaders. >> good evening, everyone. just a quick reminder, we are recording tonight for a video and audio podcast. there will be two of us going around with microphones. do we have a question?

>> i may usc element and a resident of the city. -- we agree that cities can make a huge positive impact on the cities and communities they are in. we think it's important for committees to be deeply engaged as the speakers have spoken to tonight. we would love to be at the table for the discussions that love to know when we might be able to do that. [laughter] >> that's fine, we can talk about it. >> good evening. i run a museum, the california african-american museum. i'm speaking to ask a question.

as tuition prices have gone up all over the country and students are questioning being in debt, can you talk about what could be a climate of change whether the next generation should be spending that money if it does not attach itself to a job? thank you. >> the purpose of a college education is a job. >> let me address that. >> it is true that tuition has been going up, but we should not just look at tuition alone. what is the size of financial aid that each university offers to their students? at usc, the financial aid totally have today is $230 million a year. this is money the university puts on the table and offers to students.

it is the largest of the private universities in the country. more than 60% of our students receive financial aid today. if you are a full tuition paying student at the university, you receive a subsidy of 11% today. because of the many donations, a fund-raising contributions from the endowment and so what -- this is an area we are all concerned and the way we work about it is if there is a student who would like to come and we want this to them to come, we sit down with the family and work out a plan to make it possible. >> we also have a substantial financial aid program. the students whose families earn

less that $80,000, there tuition is covered. at a good number makes a million dollars difference over a lifetime of a college graduate and non-college graduate. it is hard to explain that to 10% of employed right now. we have to prepare our students for job markets and think about creative ways of melding a liberal arts education so that they do have skills but still have the advantage of a liberal arts education which will serve that there will life. >> our tuition has increased four times. at the same time, we double the number of pell grant eligible students from families are under $45,000 a year. at scale, at a very large scale, we have implemented an

unequivocal commitment that there will be no financial barrier to entry or completion of our institution. that required us to reengineer the very structure of the institution and the way we operate to philip, bet. we operate at a very large scale. 10,000 new freshmen coming in. in terms of the second part of the question, this notion of indebtedness, we have decided as a society to stop significant public investment at the end of high school. that is a decision made and it has nothing to do with the actual meat for much of our population to continue its education. it is unfortunate we live in that kind of environment but all institutions you're committed to access at making things work. i think we will consider that

where we put the public investment but the institutions have to be committed. >> my name is charles reeves like a candy bar. you sort of answer part of my question, but i want to talk about the schools -- where the ratio of the extant to get to go to these actual colleges, the k through 12 you are talking out? >> we typically have a small school so in terms of percentage, you'll find the students at almost all the top universities and the country. it's a very successful program of getting their students to college and increasingly through college.

one of the things we have to realize is that it is great we can create the opportunities for these students, but they need a higher level of support to succeed. sometimes they need more time to catch up with some of their peers here have a more privileged education. they are represented at all our college at pretty much a full range. it is pretty successful, i think. >> i'm curious to hear your thoughts on the recent alleged hacking of the drone in iran. how plausible is that that we ranked low and math and science achievement and with all the budget cuts, why isn't that helping people make the correlation between education and natural -- national-security more seriously? >> >> you are the engineer.

>> did you just run out of fuel? >> science and engineering majors, attracting students and this discipline has always been a challenge at concern. many of you know i was one of the beneficiaries -- foreign students at the international status to come and receive an american university education and then pursue their careers and become citizens. i remember being the dean of engineering, the numbers the united states graduates 140,000 engineers per year and 80,000

were american students at the rest were international students. that is how we have met the needs in the sciences and engineering. that continues to be the case today. i believe it will continue to be the case in the foreseeable future. it has worked very well because we talk of our research universities. if you look at whether is the top 50 are top 100 research universities they are the magnet of the best and brightest from all over the world who would like to come here and all over the country. they would like to come and receive that market research university education. as a nation, we have to feel fortunate that there is such a desire for the best and

brightest to would like to come here. >> this question is in regards to k through 12. as the demographics change and we have more active senior citizens, have you folks tried to tap into those resources to help out with k through 12, a volunteer work, and stuff like that? >> we have. is a fantastic idea at we certified just under 2000 teachers a year. we've gone back and dismantle our college of education and rebuilt as a new entity in cooperation with teach for america and built around teacher educationally. we reach out to attract those into becoming a teacher, how

each of them need to be math and science capable upon graduation always small percentage have that capacity right now. that means including engaging the fact that people are living lot are and what second and third careers. we are working on a complete three conceptualization of teacher training and the engagement because the model we have the past is one of the leading centers for teachers has not been as successful as it would be to be for the future. >> we operate a program there are extension program, so a lot of retired military and people with skills can add to the work force. the teaching certificate and appropriate training. >> >> i am a graduate of rice and usc. >> now you need the other two.

>> i noticed the outside pressure, most universities tend to become insular and retract into the ivory tower and i'm sure a major part of all of your jobs is to buck that trend. how difficult is it to buck the trend and what do you have to do to get your people out into the community when it is much more comfortable to stay close? >> from my perspective, living in los angeles that provide some of the most complex social problems, economic problems transportation problems -- this is a laboratory for some of the best research that can go on. many of our faculty are focused on issues that affect los angeles because this is ground zero for a lot of these problems.

it is not hard to keep people out of becoming too insular because this community offers some many challenges that are interesting research material. >> i am the director and chief curator at cal state fullerton. my question is you all have dynamic visual arts and performing arts program. what do you see the role through those programs engaging and and the growth of city dock in terms of the research but in terms of conceptual thinking and the way city growth occurs? >> i have been struck by our graduates and finance and medicine who say they would not have been able to do what they do without that kind of education that they have and it

stokes their imagination and gives them a different way of conceptualizing a problem. we have a symbiotic relationship with the city. we have a spectacular music school and the relationship between the music school and the houston grand opera and a symphony, those things are really sustain each other. it is something we contribute to the city by making those institutions more successful and ask the city to contribute back to us. some unbelievable percentage of the orchestra has some rice affiliation. this is for a small university. baby there graduated from rice or i think the university plays a central role, not the same role, but a central role in sustaining arts and culture. it is one of the things that

makes our cities attractive to people. it makes them encouraged to move there and i think that relationship -- we are fortunate. we are across the street from the museum district in houston or the art museums are concentrated. and it through the collaboration of the museums, we were able to start an art history ph.d. program. >> usc is a research university and we have the collective strength in the arts with five arts schools less cinematic arts music theater, fine arts and architecture. there are more than 4000 full- time students on the u.s. -- on the campus to major in the arts. for the rest of the students, they have the opportunity not only to take courses of the arts but also to take a minor a major and minor or double major in the arts.

needless to say, five arts schools have very strong partnerships with all of the museums and art institutions in the city of los angeles. that partnership has been there for more than a century. >> isn't your most popular minor film? >> after the business minor it is very high. >> this will be the last question of the evening. we have run out of time. you are all invited to join us at the reception in the courtyard and our guests will be there and you can speak with them. >> thank you for this evening. i think i hear increasingly at all levels of education as that studies, gender studies coming under attack -- i am wondering how you would respond to that kind of criticism that

it advances a liberal agenda -- can you speak to the value of those programs of how you respond to criticism about that? >> i will start that coming from the wild part of the west. our new school of social transformation and school of human evolution and social change our school of transborder studies, those are all three functional operational schools. the issue in ethnic studies is not their importance or roll because that is without question. it is the intellectual focus on advancing knowledge in these fields that is most important. the way we are able of a place even as libertarian oriented as arizona to advance schools of social transformation and social justice and human evolution and

transborder studies is that the agenda is on advancing new ideas and new scholarships and new ways of thinking and understanding rather than arguing. arguments are fine, but if all you do is argue, it's not as productive as creating. we will take some argument and a lot of creativity. our focus is on create. >> i think that is going to be the last word. [applause] >> i would like to thank c-span for joining us. thank you and we will see you at the reception. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> coming up, a harvard economics professor on his research into plans to improve education for minorities. that is followed by a discussion from the recently released john kennedy tapes. later, a look at congressional redistricting after the 2010 census. several plans have landed in court. >> tonight eliot spitzer join the debate about whether to prosecute wall street banks for mortgage fraud. >> you almost hate to break up

occupy wall street, but they had a sign out there that was actually very accurate. it said we will know corporations are people when texas executes one. [laughter] the problem we have right now is we have given corporations all the upsides but none of the downside. they have gotten all the rights and privileges we extend to individuals and yet when it comes to allowing them accountable, because of the diffusion of responsibility and the layers that buffers built in by lawyers accountants and investment bankers, all doing their job good faith, it's difficult to describe criminal intent. just as in the financial side, we said you keep the up side and we guarantee to big to fail, and the criminal context, we say you do bad things, we don't have a way of holding irresponsible. >> see that as part of the present day lineup. it also includes a former navy

seal and the mission that killed us of a lot. that all starts tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> good principles and honesty and looking out for our country. >> how can you know when a president is honest? >> i think that's hard to really judge. you have to watch and keep watching and keep your mind open and see what they have to say and how they act. >> if their actions are consistent with what they're telling the american public they're going to do and seeing how close they can be to what our founding fathers had in mind for the country. >> strong leadership, principles, a vision for america, what america can be >>

being able to have a perspective of what is good for the country, what do i need to do to make it work? you have to have someone who can work and collaborate, and knows there are different opinions. that is what the country is based on a call of the different opinions and ideas how you bring it together in a direction that makes it work. i would like to think that is what effective presidents have been able to do. >> keeping in mind the principles that make america great is important to what you were saying. having a vision for how america can bring progress, not just to our country but the rest of the world as well. >> what presidents do you think at that this most successfully throughout history? >> see it or roosevelt. thomas jefferson fdr -- he was

president for how long? think it would -- think of what he got the country through. those are the ones to come to my mind. >> all of the founding fathers -- adams washington, jefferson, beyond that, i'm a big fan of harry truman. i think he did some great things in terms of representing america and moving us forward. recently i don't know i will stay away from recently. >> there have been some high marks and a low marks for all of them since eisenhower. >> a harvard economics professor speaks next on his research into closing the achievement gap between minority and white students. he's the youngest tenured african-american professor at harvard and has been steady the racial achievement gap and whether paying children to stay

in school works. this is about one hour. [applause] >> rowland has established himself as an important figure in may -- in the field of economics with a special interest in education. he is a professor of economics at harvard and the faculty director and principal investigator of the educational innovation laboratory. that mission is to provide pass breaking research, much of which you will hear about in just few moments and development in the field of education. in january 2008, at the age of 30, he became the youngest african-american to ever receive tenure at harvard, which, by the

way, makes him at age 34, most likely the youngest speaker who has ever been at the town hall stage. fortune magazine pegged him as a rising star. after spending the morning with him, i can attach to that. -- i can attest to that. the new york times ran an extensive profile on him called "toward a unified theory of black america. he has received much press surrounding the work he has done on providing incentives for students to continue their education. despite early childhood struggles, he received a scholarship to the university of texas for football, but graduated in two and a half

years. he received his ph.d. in economics from penn state and recently noted his rise to success happened through the medium of education and through the idea of the mind. ladies and gentlemen, is my distinct pleasure to introduce professor roland fryer. [applause] >> thank you brad asked them to turn lights up a little bit so i could see your beautiful faces. thank you very much for that very warm introduction. the only thing missing was i scored eight touchdowns in a pee wee football game in 1986. [laughter] i want to talk about education. there are no more excuses.

we have scalable solutions to education problems in america and the question is do we have the will to implement the solutions? before we get to that, let me give you a couple of minutes about who i am. usually, you hear a sociologists for psychologists be, it will tell you about their backgrounds before they go into their theories. i'm an economist. economists don't really go there. one of my earliest mentors was larry summers. i think very highly of larry and i have heard him give a lot of lectures on the macro economy. i have never heard larry say how he was or was not loved as a child. [laughter] i have just never heard that

come out of his mouth. but we're talking about education and lots of folks have really strong feelings about education. let me give you a sense of where i am coming from. i was raised by my grandmother and my father. by greg but there was an educator for 37 years. she was the sixth great english teacher. i was also raised by my aunt who was a social studies teacher and principal for 51 years. my father at one time in his life but top high-school math. educators are phenomenal people. being raised by educators, that is just a delay. -- just unbelievable -- just annoying. my grandmother would never allow me to speak that trash in the house. i was the only kid on the

basketball court talking the king's english. it was really inconvenient. [laughter] if you were raised by educators and if you were, you will feel as deeply. when they are at work, you are a school. when they are at home, they are home and it really stifles the creativity. there were a couple of days a year that i loved. i looked for to these days. my favorite today's were not thanksgiving and christmas. they were teacher in service days. [laughter] i used to plan these days for months. i remember watching my grandmother go down the street and i watch and watch. i didn't do bad things, it is still little things. i would not hold them all to see what was in the middle. [laughter] one day, my grandmother had gone

off and i found that instrument next to the bathtub. if you rub it on your skin, it became claim. much cleaner than soap. i believe you refer to it as a razor. my grandmother came home after the teacher in service day and said how are you doing? i said i'm good. she said what did you have for lunch? something in the fridge. she said, baby, where are your eyebrows? [laughter] and glad you found it funnier than she did. here is what happened. i was cleaning up the house because you know i don't like a dirty house. [laughter] and i moved the account out because i like to get back and a

couch out when i vacuum. i was running but not really running, but i was trotting out to the house, hit the sofa that i pulled out and they fell off. [laughter] my grandmother being a consummate educators said to me something about that doesn't sound right to me. and i thought she is a genius. so i did what any 8 year-old would do when caught in ally -- highlight again. -- when caught in a lie. i lied again. i said that you are right i had to defend your honor, we got in a scuffle at the polls him off. my grandmother said it finally the truth.

it wasn't until five years later it but i said you knew the truth all along and she said lord jesus, they will let anyone in harvard. raised by educators. i got really lucky. i'm not bragging, i really got lucky. the guys i hung around in high school, eight out of 10 of them have been imprisoned at some point. four of them are dead. in 2001, i was at the university of chicago. i was invited there by a phenomenal economist. he said economics is a full contact sport. i transferred to the university of chicago. i was driving down on the south side of chicago at 10:55 sitting at a red light. i look to the side and there were 10 guys in middle school,

early high school kids, hanging out, just playing around. doing nothing. i sat there idling in the car. to be honest with you i miss that. i had a moment where i -- i don't feel sorry for myself -- here i am at the university of chicago, living in a 16 by 16 room trying to study economics and here these guys are. and i miss that. i miss hanging out and i rolled out a window little bit and i could hear them playing jokes on each other and at that moment, i realize there was nothing i was doing -- i was writing a paper called a dynamic theory of

statistical discrimination on bias decision making. [laughter] but nothing i was doing was going to help these guys. very fortuitous and very lucky for me, about two days after that incident, i decided have to do something. i can't just too arcane economics. got to do something. i did not know anyone at that university of chicago. i knocked on his door and i heard a ruckus inside. i put my ear to the door and i heard -- coming down the last stretch. >> [unintelligible]

we started talking and he gave me good advice that to this day i try to follow. he said to me, you should do what you think you're good at. what your experiences in life have led you to have a passion for. i said really? i said did you know where have been? he said he should do what you like. i came back the next day and said i have an idea. he said what is it? i said we are going to study a mathematical model of the crack cocaine trade. and he said what? and i thought that was not a good idea. he said i had been thinking about the same thing. where can we get some data. i said i could give us the data.

i went to armand hammer, the baking soda, and that he mailed a customer service representative and said you may not know this, but your product is used in the production of crack cocaine and i like to use short sales volume. i got a response back an hour that we have nothing to do with the drug trade. i showed him my e-mail and he thought of his chair laughing. that taught me i have to do what is right for me. growing up in a family of educators and knowing the situation of education in america is my passion. is the thing that keeps me up at night. i am going to go through with you what we have been up to over the past five years trying to understand how we can fix failing schools in america. 40% of schools in america are characterized as failing.

let me get this straight before we get started. i'm not here to sell you a product. i'm never going to run for office. michael m. life is to fix education in america -- my goal in life is to fix education in america so that all children have a reasonable chance that the american dream. if we can do that, then all i want to do is what other tenured professors do -- nothing. [laughter] [applause] let me show you some facts. i love this -- this is not a new problem. in 1983, in the report "a nation at risk" -- if an unfriendly foreign power attempted to impose america the mediocre education performance that existed today, we might have

viewed that as an act of war. i know you think that's hyperbole. where you talking about. it's not that bad. here we are. what i have been here -- i have to show data. we will get this. there are more stories. what i have done here is i applauded mass that performance for these countries on the top. you see that u.s. is way down here. annual expenditure per student. we rank less than 20 in our mathematics performances, yet forced in terms of spending. we're first in one category -- self-confidence. our kids are very self confident. we look at gaps between america and other countries. if we look at gaps within america, they are even more stark.

here is boston, where i live. we have some technical issues year. roughly 75% of white students in boston are proficient in math. that is relative to less than 20% of black students. look at detroit. detroit keeps me up at night. say what you want about to try coming back, but 4% of the african-american students in detroit are proficient in math. 4%. but doberman with a pencil can do better than that. 4%. there is not a city in america in which more than 25% of african-american students can read or do math at grade level. at grade level. i agree to repeat that.

there is not a city in america in which more than 25% of african-american students are proficient in math or reading. that is a problem. that is what those kids of the but st. needed. it is what i needed. -- that is what those kids on 55th street needed. i like economic growth. something about it, i like it. if we were to close the gaps between us and south korea it would amount to somewhere between what would three in 2.4 trillion dollars in gdp per year.

--a1.3 and 1.3 and 2.4 trillion dollars in gdp per year. for those of you that did not care about economic growth. maybe you care about civil rights. maybe that is your thing. the have taken in shown you a survey of individuals who were roughly 17 in 1979 and follow them every year. i have their eighth great test scores in 1979. i can show you here that the big difference in the probability of incarceration, there is a big difference in income. there is a big difference in unemployment. there is a big difference in health. you all knew that.

here is what you might not have known. if you just come for a free test scores -- account for a great test scores did you say let's compare it to 40 year-old to in a great have the same achievement on test scores, and then look at the difference, the almost 200 percent difference goes down to 38%. then 28% wages and difference goes down to less than 1%. 190% difference in unemployment goes down to 90%. the health gap decreases as well. whether you like economic growth, civil-rights the education issues we have an america are important right now. it is not about leading.

it is about right now. -- it is not about waiting. so i know everyone in their head has this theory. it is the market, the state's teachers. i got it. i have visited hundreds of schools and have heard good ideas about how to fix the school system. i've heard more excuses about why we cannot. we tried a lot of things. are remember when we first got involved in giving students incentives. a lot of folks that very angry with me. they said dear prof., europe clearly never taught before. i thought i'd teach one undergraduate course. i told my grandfather -- grandmother that and she said that is not teaching. [laughter]

they sent letters to say why don't you just do what we know works? i thought if you have the secret solution, would you please give it to me? was with the conventional wisdom. of the past 40 years the percentage of teachers with master's degrees have gone up more than double. who could be against that? sounds a good idea to me. student teacher ratio has fallen roughly 40%. expenditures in real dollars have gone up more than twofold. and 1970 we spent $5,243 per kid. now we spend a little over 12,000. so we have educated teachers more.

we have reduced the class size. we of increased spending. our performance is exactly flat. we need something more. we have spent trillions of dollars throwing spaghetti at the wall when it comes to reform. we've spent a lot of money, and we a lot of ideas, but not much has worked out. in 2008 i said, i have an idea. let's pay kids to do well in school. my grandmother would not talk to me for a year. [laughter] she did not like that idea very much. i did not think we would fix the schools, i just thought we tried everything else on the supply side. perhaps we would try to motivate

students to learn on their own so we did a national experiment. we did it in chicago, new york and in dallas we provided incentives for students to do various things. for example, in dallas we pay $2 a book for kids to read books. people said you are destroying the intrinsic value of education. i said that they are not coming to class now. they said you do not get it. if you paid them to read, there no longer going to read for the pure joy of reading. [laughter] they will read it for the money. i said are you worried that

like, you know, the gangsters on high school campuses will be turned into people that i like i got right here? [laughter] i am fine with that. whenever it is. and it hit me over the head. you are destroying education. you are destroying the intrinsic value. i said look -- that is another thing, why are you experimenting on our kids? i said for the past 50 years we have been running an experiment. if we just focus on the adults how much can we screw up the kids? that is the experiment with been running. why don't we try to figure out what actually works? if it does not work, let's throw it out. if it does work, let's give it up. >>in d.c. we paid kids to behave in class and not beat up the

person next to you. someone laughed and said he is crazy, what is next? paid to not bring a gun to school? i thought, that is a good idea. [laughter] whatever it takes. that is what we call input. we pay kids to do particular things. the other thing is we paid for on foot -- output. we paid for test scores. in chicago we paper grades. nearly all economic theory would say pay for the output. the reason is because kids learn different ways. if you paid them for the output, they will figure out what is best for them. it will work hard to achieve the goal. maybe some kids do not like to read books etc.. what we found was that in some instances it can be a very cost- effective way to eliminate achievement, but it will never -- to achieve some of it will

never eliminate the gaps we saw. if you take it for the process not output, you can have pretty large gains of incentive programs. when we paid kids $2 a book to read, it cost $20 a kit. we got the same affect as reducing class size from 24-16. that cost $3,600 per kid. again, it will not cure everything we talked about the member really cost-effective. -- but really cost-effective. the idea was let's have innovation and fresh thinking in public schools. the output experiment just did not work. it is kind of common sense. the incentives in economics are based on all labor.

if you just do not know how to do the task come incentives are not that useful. they can be quite frustrating. we do not know each other personally but i would bet $5 million right now that no one in this audience can solve the [inaudible] hypothesis. i am not sure what would even motivate you. that is what happens to a lot of our kids. so at the same time, we were trying to look at incentives, and we did them were everyone. -- for everyone. we spent $75 million in new york doing a teacher assistance program. you guys are technical.

you know if you run 100 regressions, five are supposed to be positive just on accident. and we did not even get the three 5's. at the same time we were doing incentives for teachers, parents, principals, kids, i stumbled upon a guy named j eff. he was moved. yet come to harvard and given the speech, and i was watching him give this talk. and he was talking about what he was doing in the harlem children's own. he was released move. -- really smooth. let me show you the results. the first crop year at the top line is the average white student in new york city.

the bottom three lines are where the students started. they were admitted by lottery and fifth grade. what you can see is the black lines going up our math scores year by year. what is phenomenal about what he was doing in the harlem children's own it is that there is tremendous convergence. after four years he is closed the gap. we can do that everywhere. outcomes for the students would be a whole lot better. he did not do as well in reading, but that is a separate story. he did really well in math. they give a series of community investments and a series of school investments, and i was fascinated with that at the

laboratory. and there is a big debate in america, should we fix the schools or try to fix poverty? others believe that if you have a good school, and that is enough. i believe if you have unlimited resources, do everything. here are the results. if you look at results from another high-achieving charter school, you see something similar. we start to think, what can we do? on the one hand we were trying to do all this incentive stuff and getting a lot of zeros.

on the other hand, there was some partisansartisans genius practitioners that have figured out in eight hours on the test room they had -- test scores they had made up for party. they had made up for all of that. the question was, how you take that to scale? that is difficult. the charleston -- harlem children's fund is 100 is is a great place, but there's not enough. we have 99 percent of kids who were not in those schools. what do we do to bottle success

and scale it? i remember after we got a hard drum -- harlem children fund results in the actual students -- laxatives outpace white students. when i first got the results, i went around to scientists and said looks like we will need to study the white-black achievement gap. maybe it is your culture. when we got results, i went home. until my wife we need to go home and have dinner. my wife is a mathematician. i am glad we just got a dog, because at least i am never to in terms of iq. -- number two in terms of iq.

she studies cancer and the cellular level. when i showed her the results she said well you're almost done. she said it is for cancer,f this was cancer, and we had 12 hospitals around the country, all of thoseus would descend on the hospital and said help us figure out what you were doing, because we have people dying of cancer. education is not that way. it is clear. we have now these examples, and yet all of us sometimes will sit in say i still think of his parents. why?

we have kids. we are literally dying in the schools. she challenged me. she said you need to take that to scale. i said i am doing my incentive stuff. i am an innovator. she said you need to become an engineer. a very humbling proposition. as they all are with my wife. [laughter] i am up to three-quarters at this point. that is what we did. we went out and work with 106 of charter schools. why charter schools? you can measure their of effectiveness more easily, because they are admitted by lottery. that is harder to do in public

schools. and a charter schools are freed up to make a lot of choices so that you can correlate the choices without them. one of the charges is it will become an incubator of best practice, so you can point -- but these practices back in public schools. we went at it. we collected a bunch of data. not data you usually get. data you usually get is teachers with master's degree. what are -- how many instructional hours are there in the day? have you do small learning communities? how you use data to drive and alter the instruction? those micro-level data points. we collected as for the schools. if you look at the distribution of charter school success, the

average charter is no better than average public school. they are no better. what is great is their our charters on your right the other during phenomenal things for kids. i showed you two of them. there are more. there are charter school of lsi of the distribution that i would try to shut them down this afternoon. they all make choices. we can correlate the choices with outcomes. so we did that. we found by doctors that were most achieve needed -- most affiliated with achieve it. these factors i am embarrassed to assure you. it is the basic basics of education. if you are behind, you have to spend more time. -- it is tehhe basics of

education. small group tutoring. the call a small learning communities now. what ever. it is tutoring. tutoring on basic skills. the tudor in groups of six or less, four more daysor more days per week. good feedback. good leaders. data-driven instruction. the way a lot of stuff does you teach, teach or not. you go on throughout the school year and give a test in april. you did the test by two weeks before school ends, 80 percent of the kids fail and go home for the summer. can you imagine?

what the schools do is assess every three weeks sought such assessments. we're talking about 10 questions so they know what schools there's -- skills their students do not have. after the kids leave, i walked to the teacher in moscow many kids achieve be assessed and have you know? using data to know where the kids are in where their deficiencies are and how to build on those. the last one gets me all fired up. it is culture and high expectations. kids will live up and down relative to where recent expectations. we have to figure out a way that all kids can learn. we took these five things. i know my time is up. give me five more minutes. i'm a professor what do you expect? we took these and went around.

we said we have a sense what is correlated with what. they said let's do it. they said where did you get these? they said we do not like charter schools. i called my wife on the school -- on the phone and saying we do not like these and will not use it in the public's partnership. it would be crazy in madison. we went to a lot of places looking for this. finally we stumbled upon [inaudible] with the help of of phenomenal superintendent and stuff, we were able to implement these five things in 20 of the lowest- performing schools in houston texas. basic stuff. i talked to my grandma about every other day. every now and then she asked me when i am doing.

as an hour and try to grow what the schools more effective. i told her the five things. we're family now. i will tell you what she told me. she said, they become what they pay you for that shit? [laughter] -- baby, they pay you for that shit? [laughter] i know. i know it's obvious but it is obvious, why you're not doing it? -- if it obvious why are we not doing it? these 20 schools were terrible. the year before we went in with the strategies. and when to an elementary school that look like a mix of martial arts school with a cut off age of 12. [laughter] i went in to a kindergarten

classroom and i sat down with the kids and said what are you drawing? he said this guy stabbed him for not having enough money. tears came to my eyes. i will be honest with you, i got upset. no one in the school had the courage to tell that kid that in 10 years his probability of being in jail is one in 10. no one had the courage. in 10 years he will be in front of a judge and we will talk to him about personal responsibility. what about those responsible who are around him right now? 20 schools, 16,000 kids. the toughest schools in houston. here are the results. then have to be quiet. here we are.

the first row is the average performance in new york city charter schools. the dark blue is mass. the light blue is reading. -- the dark blue is math. that is the average new york city charter. then we have the harlem children's own. phenomenal results. those are with the results from your one in houston. [applause] we can do this. this was one year, 20 schools 16,000 kids. no lottery, no kicking out the special education students. no motivated parents to bring their kids to the lottery to

make sure this time all forms. these are traditional public schools. we have to make tough decisions about who was teaching in those schools. we link the and the school year an hour. we lengthen the school year. we interviewed all the teachers before we started. i will be frank with you i ask them what do you need to turn this school around? a non trivial fraction told me smarter kids. [laughter] i said you need something else. and i said another job. [laughter] [applause] as i told you before, grew up with educators. and i am the last thing in the world, last person in the world who was 12-teachers. i know it is hard. it is amazingly hard. it is like putting a michael

jordan in every classroom. i get it. i have to teach. i am terrible at it. at harvard the more confused you are, the more brilliant you are. it is fine. [laughter] i am working on confusion. [laughter] i am out of time, but look, here is the thing, we are out of excuses. five years ago we did not know what to do. and we have people that were doing it, but they did not really know how to do it. it is like my grandmother's cocoanut cake. it is an amazing cake. i do not want to not be able to make this cake if she passes on. and so i annoy the hell out of her. she took a pinch of something and i put a cup in it. i said ok, your punches are

roughly half a teaspoon. we did the same thing for charter schools. we've shown this can work in houston. we of seven other schools and denver. -- we have seven other schools in denver. we're out of excuses. if we want to compete with south korea, fundamentally changed landscape of our economy, stop holding kids accountable for the zip code they are born into the time is now. we can absolutely do it if we do not give in or give up. and when you think about it this afternoon, just think, if we do not do it, your corn to be leading kids just like me -- leaving kids just like me in a classroom that had a little potential but decided to turn our backs on them. i know, they do not all have

eyebrows but they're sure worth our investment. thank you very much. [applause] [laughter] [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> well, i have goosebumps. i do not know about the rest of you, but that was a wonderful lecturer. we truly appreciate it. let's start off by talking about how can we view this. what are your priorities, given that the united states has limited resources? what are the priorities that you would see help us make this change faster rather than slow work? -- rather than slower?

>> first of all, thank you. it is tough to have a portrait look better than you do. [laughter] my wife is when to let me hear that i am sure. right now it is political will to do it. and i will give you a statistic which these things keep me up at night. in washington, d.c., 8% of eighth graders can do math or reading at grade level. 90 percent of the parents in those kids think the school is good or great. i think part of it is education. part of it is to understand what is going on. then to force our elected officials to do something systemic and serious on education reform, so it is no longer we do not know what works and the kids from houston are different than the kids from tennessee.

we just have to have the political will to get it done. i am not a political person. i do not have to of a licensed to practice politics. i will never run for reelection. when he lost the election in d.c., he called me and asked me about running for politics. he said i just want to run against you. [laughter] i may be way out of my confreres on here but we know what to do. we need the ability to do it. that means strong elected officials, strong superintendents, and folks like you who could call for change. i know you cannot say it any more but this is the real stimulus package. [applause] >> as a follow-up to that, at

this question from audience is, what would you say to gov. scott of florida regarding his emphasis on standardized test results to rate all of our schools? that is what is happening in florida right now. >> i have not figured out why no one has tried a two-tiered system for standardized tests. i live in massachusetts, a wonderful suburb of boston. my wife and i just moved there. i do not want standardized test because it will crowd out my kids learning shakespeare and other things i never really read. in the schools that are failing we really do need a standardized test, because at least we know where they are. that is really important. just because we do not test

them, does not mean they are not failing. i would say it schools are high- performing, they should be able to say 90 percent of our kids pass the test in 2008, let's not take the test for two years so we can focus on different and more holistic types of instructions. for schools that are in the bottom i think you should test those kids every day. [applause] >> this is something, be careful what you asked for. would you expand on the differences between math and reading in standardized test and standardized tests and the reason for those differences? >> i have no idea. [laughter] you know, this is something they all struggle with. the reason i wanted to talk about a harlem children fund is they all struggle with this.

they start earlier. thethe math and reading were they started kindergarten, they are in sync with each other. we might need to start earlier if we want to really affect the english language arts. one of the reasons for that is masath has a very easy to understand knowledge map. there is addition subtraction. we can all agree on that. english language arts is very different, because it is like you do a bit of decoding until third grade. then it gets more complicated and more complicated. there are only so many ways to state of math problem. -- to state a math problem. there are only some of the ways to ask a problem. there are a zillion ways to

construct a sentence. so it is really more difficult i think to increase scores. one of the things our teachers told us in talking to teachers about what their views are on the programs, one of us told us professor, we are english teachers and middle school. we are not reading teachers. that is a big difference. they are not trained to help kids who come to middle school to-three years behind -- two- three years behind it cannot read at grade level. we put all of our teachers in the middle school over the summer through the training they would need to become reading interventionist. whether that will work, i do not know. come next year i will give you five minutes -- give me five minutes and i will show you the results. >> this question has to do with commitment contracts that are

used in many schools that are signed by students, teachers and parents. and what is your thought about that, and is this something you would see that would be effective in public schools? >> we did that. we did not plan to enforce them in any way shape, or form. we were doing it mainly to get clear about what we were providing, and what we wanted the parents to pride. in general, i am against any barriers to entry for kids to get into school. this is purely biased. my father went to prison when i was 12. i did not meet my mother and the lives 24-years-old. for me, i want to lower the barriers for kids in the school.

i also think these contracts can be effective at communicating clearly what the schools provide and what you want the parents to provide. we have done that. several of the parents said they would be involved now because the public school was producing something. the last piece of this is you did not hear me talk about parents on purpose. the reason is not because i do not think they are not important. they're very important. in the education landscape people use the parents as an excuse not to educate their kids. my view on this is they are sending you the best kids they have. they do not the good ones at home. [laughter] -- do not have tehhe good ones sitting at home.

i feel liberated. [laughter] in all seriousness, for our principles and 27 schools, i tell them you will educate everyone who crosses those steps. i do not care who they are. and [laughter] [no[applause] they think i'm crazy. and maybe i am. one vendor% of our kids in schools will be applying and accepting to college. -- i said 100% of our kids in schools will be applying and excepted to college. not because they were super motivated, but because we put them in the gym in said we will keep you here for days and to use a lot of college application. [laughter] the difference is, relative to houston as a district, the

college enrollment, not just application cover enrollment, for our kids andwent up 40 percent in one year. [no audio] [applause] = = = =[applause] >> you just touch of or personal life, and i have several questions about that. the first is, how your personal experiences influence your drive to achieve your goal, or how you create a fire in the belly that propels you? guest>> i do not know. i have always been a competitive guy. i played football for a while. my grandmother took advantage of this. we did not have a lot of money growing up, and i would get tired of eating stuff like beans. she would put a black bean into

a pot of white beans and set a bit you cannot find it. -- said i bet you can't find it. [laughter] i am sure she put a black been in as the last thing. i never found dead early. -- found it early. so i have always been a competitive person. i learned that from coaches, of interesmentors. i have had a lot of people but have helped me along the way. my sixth grade english teacher went to the seventh grade with me because she would worry -- was were read i would go off the handle. the starling in high school who i have thanksgiving over at her house when things were getting rough for me as a kid. i have had phenomenal mentors in my life every step of the way. i consider myself enormously lucky. if you combine that with my

natural competitive drive. it's a call me to play tight end, i would go out and make a fool of myself, but i would do it hard. he you combine that 00-- if you combine that with the guilt that i feel, i have a good life now. it was not always that way. i left a lot of people behind. when i first got to harvard people would say to me, hey man, how does it feel to beat odds? that would really it is me offpiss me off, because it is not about beating odds. it is about changing of odds. i just decided that that is my lot in life, and i will be very honest with you, if you come to me at 12-years-old when i was

the most miserable time in my life, and said little guy i am going to -- you are going to go through bad things and your father will go to prison but do not worry, i will week -- will make you a mid-level manager in a corporation, and you will make good money and live in a nice house, i would not have taken that but to the bank. i would have said do not give me these struggles come and let me live a reasonable childhood. if you come to me and said kid, you were born to endure some stuff now -- are going to endure some stuff now, but the same pain and 20 years will fuel you to try to change all for thousands and thousands of kids that look like you, i would have done it. [applause]

so i guess i am just trying to make the journey worth it to be honest with you. >> this will be our last question. in 2009, you were named by "time" magazine as one of the most -- in one of the most 100 people that affect our world. the article mentioned you have been doing research about the taboo against acting white. what does that really mean come and how does that impact all of us? guest:>> "time" magazine is hilarious, because i am still no. 2 in my house. [laughter] between my grandmother and my wife tough days.

you lose your key, and i am a little scatterbrained, and my grandmother says you lost your key, "time" magazine huh? [laughter] it is a phenomenon that has been studied at a lot. in some communities around the world people hold each other back from are reaching their full potential for various reasons. this is not just about blacks in america. what happens is people who are trying to excel are sometimes thought of as mimicking a more dominant group. here in america it would be acting white. if you are trying to speak the king's english or dress and a certain way.

there are big called " differences in america between blacks and whites. smoke different cigarettes, drink different rinks, tv shows are very different. "seinfeld" was a top american show up for years, and never rent in the top five for blacks. maybe the only thing we can come together on is monday night football. [laughter] i was interested in this and how it might affect student achievement. you hear stories, but you do not know how empirical relevant they are. that happens an indication of what in general. the you read these stories and they draw on observation and for all line. they expanded, and it is hardd to reach conclusions on observations. i would walk or run schools and call it the cardiac test. i have been studying for

cardiaeducational long time. i would ask if the education after-school program works. they would say you can feel it in your heart. [laughter] acting white was one of those things. it could be lifted their heart but a quantitative measure owas difficult. what i did was to write down a mathematical model to figure out why it was happening. basically the model was essentially you are signalling to two groups. you want to signal to employers to work traditionally productive, but in some communities that same signal is notification that you may be leaving the community and maybe they do not you to do that. then we got a bunch of data and

found out there is a penalty for high-achieving minority students in america once they get above 3.5, they seem to lose friends in the schools. it is a phenomenon, but not even close, it will not explain the big gaps we have seen. at best it can be explained as a very tiny portion of the problem of the achievement gap. >> thank you so much for being with us. [applause] >> coming up here on c-span, a discussion of the recently- released john kennedy white house tape recordings of covering the vietnam war soviet relationships come and the number of other issues president kennedy was dealing

with. a look at congressional redistricting after the 2010 census. that will be followed by president obama honoring the 16 winners of the 2011 national matter -- national medal of arts and humanities metal. tonight on c-span come here from google's [inaudible] . >> i have always believed the internet can help change the world. i know this sounds very cliche or does not make sense to a lot of people, but that is just how i see things. working for google working for a company like this that this project on line in egypt will make a difference. i remember the interview, the typical why do you want to work for google, it was not -- what i liked about google, the

democracy of offering people information. probably people living here do not understand the value that we all have equal access to information. oppressing regimes most of the people would only get streams of propaganda falling into their brain, and this is how the regime could sustain, besides making everyone scared. >> see his remarks as part of our prime-time lineup. it also includes a former navy seal on the mission that resulted in the killing of osama bin laden and the debate on whether to prosecute false readings from mortgage fraud. it all begins tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> presidents have been featured prominently in see spam' cspan's programming throughout the years. there are several online

resources that can help you learn more about each president. we'll put together a special page on the library that provides links to the resources. it is located on the right side of the c-span video library home page. when you click on it, you see all the different resources we have that can help you learn more about the presidents, starting with a series we produced in 1999 called "the american presidents, life portraits." it has individual programs, as well as a page of specially- commissioned presidential portraits. we have also put together a link to 19 different book notes programs. these are hour-long interviews. also on the page is a series of links with 13 presidential

libraries. more recently we produced a series of programs that profiled 14 different men who ran for the president, but did not win. the series is called "the contenders." we have also put together a link to more than 400 different c-span programs throughout the years that deal with the presidents or the presidency. if your interested in this year's campaign for the white house, you can visit the campaign 2012 web site as well. all of these are available at c- spanvideo.org. >> the john kennedy presidential museum recently released white house tape recordings for the nation's president. the cover vietnam's soviet relationships and kennedy on color tv. washington journal procter

researcher provided historical con -- context on the tapes. >> we want to focus on some of the recordings of president john f. kennedy. joining us is david coleman, a chair of the president recordings program at the university of virginia, part of the miller center of foreign affairs. the watergate scandal in the early 1970's led to the announcement that richard nixon was not the only one with recordings in the oval office. >> correct. richard nixon was secretly taped in thee white house, which led to a further prevalent -- revelation that other presidents were secretly taped in the white house. >> let's share some of those recordings, including some of the discussions from september 1963. these are the last recordings

before president kennedy was assassinated on november 22. this conversation is focusing on vietnam. >> [inaudible] >> this is what we've been dealing with for three weeks. >> david coleman, it is no secret that president kennedy had a lot of issues with his general as a result of the cuban missile crisis, and a leading up to what was going to happen in vietnam. >> exactly. what you have of this recording is president kennedy tried to get the situation in vietnam. here is talking twoo two people.

one is a general that have been over in vietnam. what he is hearing is very different stories about what is going on. he is trying to reconcile these very diverging views and recommendations that are coming from the political side, civilian side, in military side. >> let me ask you about the mechanics. these were conversations inside the oval office. >> there are two types of recordings in the kennedy tapes. viewers might be aware of the lbj tapes. these are very clear. there were few of these. there are about 12 hours of recordings by telephone in dictation. most of the kennedy tapes are actually meeting recordings. that is quite different. they were microphones he did in the oval office in the cabinet room come and they are embedded into the walls where coffee

tables -- or coffee tables. no one come apart from the president, knows they are being recorded. they're not speaking up for explaining themselves well. oftentimes they might be 20 feet away from the microphone. you will hear a meeting recording that is simply not very clear, because it was not designed for picking up the best quality, quality. >> we're talking about the jfk recordings. phone lines are open if you have any guess or comments. you could send us a tweet or an e-mail. not only vietnam, but situation with the foreign affairs minister inside the oval office. here is a portion.

>> as you listen to those, and i should apologize because it is rather hard to hear. for those of you watching on television we have the script on the screen. >> they are hard to hear. he is meeting with the soviet foreign minister. this is in october 1963. this is only the second time

they have met in the oval office. almost a year to date they had a very famous meeting, just a few days after kennedy had been shown photographs of soviet missiles in cuba that have not been announced to the world. they met in office. he said no. that was used and example by kennedy and advisers of soviets duplicity in the cuban missile crisis. so the relationship between these two are very strange. a year later if they are meeting again in the oval office. kennedy is trying to convince them that relations are improving. that development in west berlin and other places around the world, the cold war tensions are easing. he is constantly saying no, i do not think so. kennedy is using the opportunity

to try to put a positive spin about what is going on in the cold war. >> why did president kennedy won the recordings? he never said so. -- want to recordings? he was historical-minded. he had a very strong sense of history. our best estimate is that he wanted these for his memoirs. he was going to be a very young president. assuming it was going to get a second term, he was still going to be a very young president. he almost certainly plan to write memoirs after he left office. these were almost certainly designed as notes. >> david coleman, who was earned his doctorate in australia. gary is on the phone. good morning. hocaller: i go on youtube every now and then come and they have kennedy tapes.

they had won about jfk had called johnson and was on to him about the cia and a cue. six months before he was shot, he put out $600 million, i think it was, that did not go through the fed, and none of them liked that. >>guest: one of the big issues they are discussing in the fall of 1963 when the recordings came out is vietnam, whether or not the united states should support opposing the south vietnamese leaders. this is a very active topic of discussion. there is a very big split amongst advisers. this is one of the things that comes up constantly on these tapes what united states policy should be towards the south

vietnamese government. whether they should support this. in early november of that year 1963, there ended up being a coup. vietnamese president and his brother. both were brutally murdered and the united states had not known that the outcome would be so brutal that had been discussing for several months about whether to depose him. our guest is david coleman. caller: my question is this. on the kennedy takes and some of the others, who decided when to tape? was this a presidential decision or was this the person running the recording device, or was there any pattern that you

can decipher? guest: that is an excellent question, and it varies for each president. in the case of president kennedy, he decided to control the taping system. this was something he decided on his own. he asked the secret service to install the system. he did not tell all of his aides. his secretary, evelyn lincoln did not know about it. he considered these his records and in the cabinet room, he would sit at the middle of a long table and there would be a button that just look like a buzzer. in the oval office, he had other concealed buttons. it was kennedy who pushed the button on when to record and when to stop. his secretary could also decide if she thought kennedy should turn the machine off or something, but it was kennedy who decided when to record and when not to record. what in the end up with is a fairly sporadic record.

you have large recordings from kennedy during the cuban missile crisis and afterward, and then it drops off for the rest of the year. other presidents were different. lbj take many of his telephone calls. richard nixon had a voice activated system. he did not have a button. basically captured everything that the -- when he was in the room. but the president's approach it very differently. each president decided independently to install the system. these were not at the time considered by the president to be federal government belonging to the people. host: a question saying it is my understanding kennedy made a secret deal with russia to hold some of art nukes as a back down to cuba as nukes. guest: one of the proposals that came through late during the cuban missile crisis of october's 26 and 27 with the

soviet union's best that one of the things, and this came through in a letter from khrushchev one of the things we would like is for the united states to remove its missiles from turkey. at the time, the united states and kennedy responded ignoring this issue, and initially the issue became defused without acknowledging it publicly or directly. what was going on behind the scenes was that there was a secret channel of discussions going through the soviet embassy with robert kennedy and the soviet ambassador and some others in the soviet industry predict the soviet embassy. through that secret -- some others in the soviets embassy. there were nato missiles never close to the soviet union and so for khrushchev, this was magical. this part of the deal was never

publicized until it came out almost a decade later. experts one historic note, abraham lincoln's secretary was named kennedy. danny is joining us from ohio. caller: and president kennedy spoke about the military, being a war hero himself who received the navy cross, and his brother being killed in action, his brother joseph was killed in action in world war ii. it is my feeling that president kennedy was our greatest president, and it is shame that he never could serve a second term, and also a shame that his son his life was cut short. i think he would have probably picked up that mantle. i believe that john f. kennedy

was a martyr, but his -- was a moderate, but his brother was a liberal. i would just like to say that. thank you for receiving my call. host: thank you. guest: kennedy had a complex relationship with the military. when he became president he had a difficult relationship with the military brass and as a young lieutenant in the navy, he had idolized some of the people that he was now commander-in- chief of, people like admiral byrd. particularly with the bay of pigs in -- invasion in 1961, he became disillusioned with the guys he was getting from the pentagon and he in -- installed one of his advisers to help act as a liaison and smooth through

the process and protect his interest better. the continue to have a difficult relationship with the military brass throughout the cuban missile crisis and throughout his presidency. his relationship now was very different. he was commander in chief trying to balance not just military use but state department central intelligence aid to the, and the american electorate. so his relationship that fundamentally shifted. he had a very difficult relationship especially with the bay of pigs invasion. host: i am going to read this week. -- this tweet. as you look back at these recordings nearly 50 years ago what historical value is there? >> let me address why this is coming up now. the kennedy library has released -- released a loss --

lost back of kennedy take of the last 45 hours. this is the first time we have had access to some of this material from 1963. the archivists have been doing a wonderful job of making the material available to the general public. the question is, does history matter? as a historian, i am naturally going to say yes, it does matter. it is important to see where current policies come from, what was happening in the 1960's that may be influencing today. we also have a fascinating history of a president in office first term president looking forward to re-election which obviously has some parallels. a democratic president in office looking forward to reelection. so there are some interesting parallels there. host: a lot of people weighing in on twitter.

i cannot imagine any modern politician handling the cuban missile crisis as well as jfk. guest: he certainly handled it well. when he came out of the missile crisis there was a great puzzle on how to define the missile crisis. it only came to be described as a great victory for the united states and also defined jfk and his presidency. when the tapes came out we had an even better view of that. it was actually possible, minute by minute during the secret discussions on how he handled it, and his pragmatism and how he was thinking about this. you come away with an even greater appreciation of how he handled this. as to have another president would handle it, i don't know. i cannot answer that question. and joseph -- host: josef

backing you up on that question. charles, are you with us? please go ahead. caller: i am from north carolina. what i wanted to understand is that i have been studying this for a long time, and i am 56 years old. i have always wondered what was the purpose of kennedy getting killed -- i am trying to get it right, excuse me for a minute. host: let me just take that question his assassination. obviously something that is part of history and discussion and debate for the last 50 years. guest: it is one of those questions that i think people still do not regard as settled. historians for the most part, it

is a complex mix of things. i am not an expert on the details of the assassination because an incredible amount detail has come out on this. as to the purpose from what i have read and study, i don't see some grand conspiracy behind this but then again, there are other people that know far more about this than i do. host: in this day and age of digital phones and i phones the 1964 color television was the big new indigent. those debates in 1960 between kennedy and nixon were in black and white so as john kennedy prepared for his own reelection with an eye on the convention 1964 he had this to say about what films you want to show and how he wanted them to be viewed.

[inaudible] host: first of all, the level of detail he was involved in, that was 10 days before his assassination. guest: there are a few things going on here. a year out from the election, kennedy was thinking about the election. in this time when kennedy was taping, the idea of starting so early was quite novel. that is something that kennedy himself has regarded as the greatest contribution he could make to his re-election was starting early. you have a president a year out thinking in great detail about

how to present his case to the american people. he is talking about films to be shown at the democratic convention. host: in atlantic city. guest: in atlantic city. he had been a pioneer in using television. it helped define his campaign. he worked with that lesson. he was also fan of films. he liked to watch a lot of films. very early on he embraced what would now be essentially called reality tv. he had invited of filmmaker by the name of robert drew to come and fell behind the scenes about what was going on during his campaign. he had invited him back in the summer of 1963 to take a view of the civil rights process in alabama. so kennedy himself had a very strong sense of how technology

and at this point it was color tv might play into an election, how it might be seen as part of a new generation colorful 1960's. in great detail, he was laying out this is the type of thing we should be showing at the convention, this is who should be producing it. host: the latest recordings from the kennedy library. our guest is david coleman. tony is on the phone from massachusetts. caller: i can answer the last caller question. the reason why kennedy was murdered was because of a certain secret society that they had here. there is a definitive treaty of 1783 that was made between the english empire and the united states. that is why today america, they say it is the united states, but it is not.

host: another theory. thank you. let's go back to some of the recordings. this is the same conversation that president kennedy was having with cordray gromyko in 1973. a young caroline kennedy can be heard in the background, as well as john kennedy jr. [inaudible] host: let me clarify what we just heard was president kennedy talking about his trip to texas and trying to schedule something for friday, the 29th, and saying

instead he needed to do it on that tuesday which ended up being the day of his funeral. guest: that strike, this is the last batch of kennedy takes, and they go up to the last few days before his assassination. -- that is right. he is trying to schedule for the next week, trying to change his schedule to be more manageable. it did provide a very poignant view of the president and the presidency at this point in view of what we now know. at the time, it was monday and scheduling issues, but the point is we know what happened after that. host: we go now to charlie in west virginia. good morning to you. go ahead. caller: my question is, was there anything revealed in the tapes that have been reviewed by mr. coleman that would suggest that there indeed was the

concern on the part of president kennedy of secrecy, secret societies in america? guest: i have seen nothing on that particular topic on the tapes. host: >> a viewer asking about his back problems. there is never any footage of him struggling. in the recordings, is there any indication that he was in pain? guest: rarely. there are some unusual short clips where he is talking to white house doctor about getting some medication cent over but it is not something that came up very often. it is something he would often -- not something he would often talk about directly. his closest aides around him would notice he was in pain, but not something he would talk about. it is also the kind of thing he was generally taping. he was choosing what to take. he was taking for history

generally taping meetings or important conversations. in general, he was not taking day-to-day life. host: is a sad to say that it no longer exists? we will go next to thomas. caller: i am calling from john f. kennedy's birthplace, and i had a question about if there were any discussions on any takes or any conversations kennedy had as president regarding lyndon johnson pose a role in 1964 -- lyndon johnson's rolle in 1964? guest: he does turn up on some of the takes. he is part of the executive committee at the national security council, so he is present in the room for many discussions about the cuban missile crisis. i have not had a chance to listen to the entire case of these discussions at the convention about whether there

would be a role for lbj or what that role might be. it has only been out a few days, and it takes some time to listen to it. host: as you listen to these tapes, you are really eavesdropping into a window to this president and his conversations. guest: absolutely. these are very different from the usual type of tapes from any other president. these are not something written up after the fact and they don't go on the memory of memoirs and things like that. these are real time, so they are very much a fly on the wall as it is happening. not trying to explain in retrospect. you really are put in the oval office or the cabinet room as the decisions are taking shape. you are able to hear what he is hearing, what his advisers are saying. you are able to hear all the nuances of different points of

view coming at him. he is trying to balance all that form a decision based on that. there are very different real- time, unfiltered. they did not go to the press office and someone saying you cannot say that. this is very raw history, and it was never meant to be made public. these were regarded as private records. they were not prepared for public release in the sense that kennedy or anyone else was trying to manipulate what is going on. host: roy is calling from virginia beach. caller: i just want to comment on his so-called terrorism on the high seas. it is just amazing -- his so- called heroism on the high seas. let me get to the point here. how did he get hit by a destroyer on the high seas?

my understanding that president kennedy had some physical problems that would have prohibited any other man from serving as a lieutenant on a pt boat. host: thanks for the call. guest: that's right, kennedy did have a lot of physical ailments, and under most circumstances, most people would have been -- he had family connections that helped him get into the military. i am not a military person. i do not know the intricacies of the particular action that took place that night, so i cannot answer that question. but certainly during the 1960 campaign his war record was portrayed very heroically, an image that stopuck. that has been part of this idea of jfk that has grown in estimations since his presidency. his approval ratings doubt are

much better than they were during his presidency. caller: the thing i remember about kennedy he was really concerned about inflation. he was constantly fighting the price increases on steel, oil and even on the automobiles. he said he was going to buy all american motorcarss cars. he was really concerned about inflation, and i really have the most respect of any president i ever voted for was john f. kennedy. thank you for your time. host: george romney was running american motors -- general motors at the time he became governor of michigan. guest: as you would expect from

any president, this was something that was very high on his agenda. in 1962, the economy was not doing very well. he was considering all sorts of things. there was a big debate going on within the and ministration about what to do about the economy. things did improve during 1963. obviously the economy is something that is very high for any president's agenda. it is just one of the most complex, difficult parts of being president. host: in his book, chris matthews writes about the steroids at john f. kennedy was on and the impact they had bulking him up and making him look healthy. he also suffered from addison's disease. one viewer asking if he really did have a terminal illness. can you answer that? guest: i am not a medical doctor. i have never heard of these

illnesses, and there were many that were not fully disclosed at the time. i have not heard any of them described as terminal. they were serious however. from a very early age he had suffered through a whole series of illnesses. he was not a very help the president. -- not a very healthy president. from early on he was getting treated with steroids. there are all sorts of side effects, including the pleading his -- i have not heard them described as terminal, but they certainly were serious. caller: i enjoy your research so far. you have any insight or knowledge of people in southeast asia like vietnam, that perhaps were our friends in world war ii and ended up being

our enemies at the start and continuation of vietnam? i will listen to your comment. it is very interesting. host: thanks for the call. this is leading up to escalation and involvement in vietnam in the 1960's. guest: vietnam is one of the top issues the administration was facing. it did not just appear from nowhere. there has been a long history of changing relationships and dynamics between people in southeast asia and elsewhere with the united states. as kennedy and his advisers grappled with this in 1963, they are trying to work out not just to their friends and enemies are about where -- the future in southeast asia and how to shape it. predates a lot of the buildup

that was going on. it did not really escalate until 1964-1966. it is only right at the end of kennedy's presidency when the south vietnamese leader was assassinated. it is one of the great turning points and some regarded as the moment of no turning back. you hear on these tapes kennedy trying to shape what the united states' involvement in southeast asia looks like. host: we will listen to one more recording. john kennedy were alive today he would be in his mid-90's. if you could ask him one question based on what you have heard in these recordings, what would it be? guest: i guess why would you take?

if he entered that, it would give us all sorts of answers on how he viewed history what he was looking forward to in 1964. it would answer all sorts of questions about how he thought about the world. host: caroline and john kennedy jr. can be heard in the background in 1963, just a month and a week before john kennedy was assassinated. [inaudible] host: part of the camelot legacy?

guest: very much. this was just weeks before he was assassinated. you hear kennedy being a father as well as the president. they are living in one house living in the west wing. it is very poignant, of course. they are coming down to see their father and they are talking about the doll. -- talking about the dog. host: if people want to listen to these recordings, where can they go? guest: the kennedy library has wonderful resources. there is some fantastic material in there. you get a wonderful view of the president'cy. there is a wealth of material

related to the u.s. president. host: thank you very much for your time in perspective and putting these latest recordings into context. >> coming up, congressional redistricting after the 2010 census. several plans drawn up by state legislatures have ended up in court. that will be followed by president obama honoring the 16 winners of the 2011 national medal of arts and national humanities metal. then look at the constitutionality of the affordable health care act with the virginia and massachusetts attorney general. >> i think a good american presidents should be able to think about -- he is responsible not only for his own country but he has a strong influence all over the world.

i think it should be somebody who is able to think about that and also somebody who is able to think with his own mind and not to be influenced by all the different groups and financial forces and lobby groups that are around. >> i think good leadership skills probably, good people skills, and he needs to be smart and friendly. >> can you give us an example of that? >> well, i am, like, 17. from what i have seen, i really like john f. kennedy from what i have heard about him. >> you or fourth grade teacher. whups qualities do you -- what qualities do you think make a good president? >> i think probably car really strong sense of leadership, and

honesty could people in connection to the people, knowing what they want and representing what this country is all about fighting for our rights, and making sure we are being heard. >> can you give an example of how a president can show those traits? honesty, for example. >> i think getting on national television and sharing with us what is really going on in the world, and really what political viewpoints are, for real, not just the party's political viewpoints. i would appreciate a little more of that. >> should you think has been successful in doing that? >> oh, gosh, not a whole lot of people. there is a lot of flip-floping going on. i don't know if there is anybody at this point in time. >> i think integrity is one quality that you need. great leadership skills, and probably i would say honesty

also. being honest is another quality you need in a good president. >> we are hearing a lot that honesty is one of the talk things that is important. how can the president showed that to the american people? >> when you talk about issues that affect the common person, i think you just need to be straight forward and give the facts and be truthful about it. whether it is going to hurt or help us, let us know what the truth is about the matter and move on. let us make the decision about it. >> tonight on c-span a former navy seal talks about his new book on the mission that resulted in the killing of osama bin laden. >> one of the things that got me off the bench to write this book is by august, these factoids had not metastasized into a story it had the seal scratching their helicopter as they ride like the keystone kops, blowing their way

into the building finally shooting their way through the building to the third floor where they wounded man's wife and shot him in cold blood in his bedroom. that did not sound like a seal team mission to be so talking to guys who were there on the scene, and this whole thing was basically over in 120 seconds. quite a different story. >> the his remarks as part of our presidents day prime-time lineup. also included debate on whether to prosecute wall street banks for mortgage fraud, with former new york governor elliot spencerspitzer. it all starts tonight at 8 eastern on c-span. >> state legislatures around a country are working on redrawing congressional district maps after the 2010 census.

some redistricting plans have landed in court. stanford law school held an all- day conference in late january looking at changing demographics and what is ahead for redistricting in the coming decade. this is about an hour and 33 minutes. >> we are going to get started. thank you all for coming back again and thank you for being here. one of my favorite philosophers is satchel paige. he was famous for many things, including telling you to avoid eating fried food. thank you so much for helping with the lunch along those lines. one of the other things that satchel paige says is, let whosoever sit around recollecting, i am looking up

the line. that is a perfect thing for this panel, which is going to consider redistricting partisanship and the future of the voting rights act. i want to start with the past of the voting rights act because it situates many of the debates today. the year that the voting rights act was passed, langston hughes published a poll aim -- published a poem. cited for the telescope of dreams, a man's vision looms very large. turn the telescope around, looked to the larger in, and wonder why what was so large become so small again. we are now roughly a half century away from the second reconstruction of which the voting rights act was the crown jewel. in many ways, the voting rights act was amazingly successful. so we forget what prompted the voting rights act to be passed in the future.

but when we ask why the first reconstruction, which was roughly twice as far from the voting rights act as we are from the voting rights act in the opposite direction. it was 100 years from the first reconstruction to the voting rights act and has now been 50 years roughly from the voting rights act to today. we ask why the first reconstruction bell. there were a number of reasons for that. one was the exhaustion of the national commitment to racial justice and it is replacement by a cynical bipartisan compromise. a second was a progressive believe, and they use the word progressive to describe themselves, that politics is the enemy of good government and the purging race from the political process is important. a third reason was the united

states supreme court. it is gutted the protections of the first reconstruction, the ability of minority communities to protect themselves in the political process. when president johnson signed the voting rights act, he called it one of the most monumental loss in the entire history of american freedom, and then in his colorful way went on to call it the toughest voting rights act that his staff could devise. he famously remarked after signing the other crown jewel of the second reconstruction, the civil rights act of 1964, that i think think we just delivered the cell to the republican party for a long time to come. partisanship and the voting rights act have always been connected and intertwined in interesting and important ways. the panel today is going to look at those issues from a variety of perspectives. i will introduce the panel very briefly in the order they are

going to speak. allan katz -- ellen katz has written major scholarship books including one of the large studies of section 2 of the voting rights act. her contribution to the symposium here, why partisan use of the voting rights act might not be so bad after all. before entering teaching, she worked at the the part of justice. joshua thompson is a staff attorney with the national litigation center at the pacific legal foundation, a prominent conservative legal organization. he was co-author of the pacific legal foundation's amicus brief to the supreme court in northwest austin utility district, a case challenging the

constitutionality section of the voting rights act, an issue that we know is about to return to the supreme court in a variety of ways. finally, nina perales. she supervises offices throughout the united states in the voting rights docket. she is a prominent voting rights attorney. she was the last winter -- winner in the supreme court case. she is one of the lead lawyers in the current tax is redistricting case working its way through the western district of texas, through the district of columbia and the supreme court. it is kind of a trifecta. the panelists will each speak for about 10-50 minutes and then

we will turn to questions about changes in the world since the voting rights act and what those changes portend and whether the act survives into the future. >> it is great to be here. it has been a great day so far. i want to thank you for organizing a terrific event. i want to start with a simple observation. much of the mess that has been going on in texas would not have happened with john mccain as president of the united states, and a republican controlled board of justice would have almost certain approved the texas plan almost as is. it would not have stopped the litigation, there would still be much to fight about but in that respect, at least some of the mess would not have happened.

as it stands, greg abbott, the attorney general of texas, never even asked the board justice to approve the texas plan. technet barack obama's justice department would not view -- thinking that barack obama's department would not view it favorably, given the civil rights objections that have been raised from the beginning. that prediction was correct and the justice department has raised a number of quite serious objections to the plan. the texas dispute provides a mirror image to one of the major redistricting battles of the last decade only with the republican and democratic roles reversed. you saw a democratic attorney general thinking that the justice department of george bush would not look highly it on a democratically gerrymandered plan, and george bush's

department of justice indeed raised objections in court. i don't want to explore the statutory questions at issue. one of the things that is clear about the case is that the the part of justice's position mapped on to the strategic interest of the republican party, and just as certain, had there been democrats in control at the time, the democratic doj would have approve that plan readily. something we all know is that democrats and republicans in force voting rights quite differently. democrats 10 to enforce them in ways that benefit the democratic party, and republicans do likewise. often it corresponds to democrats reading of the voting rights act more expansively and aggressively. what i want to explore here is the question whether we should be worried about this.

the different ways democrats and republicans enforce the voting rights act prevents the statute from operating effectively or as we hope it would. thinking about this question, i want to assume the party of the sitting president stands to benefit from the enforcement actions taken by the department of justice. i want to be agnostic and ask you to be agnostic as well, and ask you whether that actually describes any particular enforcement decision. a lot to assume cadet that is what is going on and i don't want to make the argument that democrats and republicans are necessarily seeking partisan gain when they make any particular decision, but what if they work? imagine, for instance, that the attorney general were to say something to the effect of, the department of justice position in texas versus the united states is an effort to block an

aggressive republican gerrymander. we are using the voting rights act as a convenient hub to push back against it. of course never said any such thing. he said quite the opposite. but soon he said it and assuming accurately decides what the part of justice was up to in this case. should we be worried? what i want to explore is the idea of maybe not, maybe we should not be worried and may be it is not a particular problem. in pursuing this claim, we will have to part company with many commentators, some of whom are sitting in this room, who have long viewed partisan use of the botha rights act as distasteful and destructive. one thing i want to push is the notion not just a partisan use of the voting rights act in cases like taxes of -- versus the united states, is benign, but whether it actually helped facilitate the act in important ways.

to do that, first i want to briefly, look at to objections to partisan use of the voting rights act and knock them down, and then raise a broader point about the practice more generally. two objections, one is that the claims that are brought for when the statute is used for different partisan purposes are frivolous, or factually unsubstantiated or manufactured to serve distinct ends. the idea is that the claims underlying -- this is underlying the plans are partisan not racial, and those unhappy with the plan suffered as members of a political party not as members of racial group. related to that is the second objection, that this cannot just error but actually does affirmative damage, that

recasting it in racial terms of racial lines is the dispute and gives rise to things like racial polarization. makes things works -- it makes things worse as a consequence. they finally mistakes cause and effect. california side, redistricting is a partisan process and that all is almost always a partisan process, but it is achieved through what are race-based moves, in most jurisdictions. it relies on a close connection between race and party in most jurisdictions. it is not an accident that georgia democrats and packed every american district to achieve the ends of their partisan gerrymander. this cannot and active in texas that republicans are achieving partisan ends by moving voters all around the state district that they drop.

to put it differently the voting rights act claims that it does not rationalize a non- racial disputes. they are political, too. all i want to suggest is that partisan motivation should not immunized or prevent or preclude statutory injury under the voting rights act. but claims we can assume are manufactured to cheap partisan ends but it does not mean the claims themselves or frivolous or otherwise factually unfounded. we could go through case after case, and i will not do it now but see in a lot of these cases where we might see partisan motivation as playing a role. substantial claims have been raised even if they are not always successful. i want to suggest that partisan motivation in certain cases like texas versus the united

states assuming that is what is going on, is not the problem is often assumed to be. provides push back against partisan districting that relies on a close connection between race and party. i want to also suggest or consider a broader point that it might be beneficial in an additional sense in that it helps us see the ways in which the mission underlying the voting rights act has in fact evolved an expanded over the years. we have heard about this today repeatedly, it was put in place at a time when local majorities were unwilling to even acknowledge, much less in force and protect minority voting rights. it continues to serve an important function in fighting discrimination in various forms. it also does something else. provides a forum to resolve disputes pick is a dispute resolution mechanism.

interested parties have shot and resolve competing claims about minority participation. i think that function of the voting rights act is crucially important. there are other ways we can assess questions of equality and fairness in the political process. i think the value of the voting rights act as a dispute resolution mechanism lies not simply in its manifest superiority to other forms of dispute resolution, or even in a historic context, which is quite significant. its value lies in the fact that it offers a powerful form of the -- of dispute resolution. i might be more generous and say it is fair and effective and in many situations, the point i

want to make, i think tolerable is actually good enough, but as it captures the role it plays. simply because it exists, state and local governments can rely on it. that reliance disempowering to them, and i hope i can convince you of this point. i mean something different than the ways in which the voting rights act has been recognized to give the beleaguered local officials the ability to do the right thing against the majority that might not be so willing. it is an important role. it is empowering in a much more broad sense. what i mean here is -- it relies on a larger literature that recognizes the power can be augmented through selective restriction. it is empowered by the very constraints that it imposes.

it offers a system to resolve competing questions about equality. think about the texas dispute here. the republicans are in control of the process. democrats want to push backs. quickly the question becomes how many seats as the latino voters control. how many seats will they be given are allowed in the midst of this fight? that fighting occurs and continues now, not as a question of what is fair or an open-ended inquiry about what might require, but in a much more limited and circumscribed inquiry about what the voting rights act requires. the question is disputed hotly and we will not see resolution to it for a while, i suspect. but the role is not eliminating the controversy, but giving in the terms and procedures through which that claim is going to be

litigated and resolved. it has to comply with the voting rights act. that is going to be opposed and is being opposed and texas needs to respond. that conversation continues. we can assume that everybody is motivated by partisan aims. we can assume that is what is going on, and still the voting rights act is performing an important function, a vital function, and flaming the debate and providing procedures and rules through which that debate occurs. it is way of cashing out the competing claims of equality while still channelling it and keeping it circumscribed. i think it allows the participants to a surplus ownership over the claims they are making, and it lessens the heat that might otherwise arise when issues are debated. it is important to recognize the role as the resolution

mechanism. we think about the statute to frequently in negative terms as a constraint. it prevents us from doing things we might otherwise do. it has an affirmative quality that is important to recognize not simply because it gives us a more complete picture of what the statute does, but it also gives us -- makes us aware of what would be lost in this access. one of the reasons the voting rights act is so vulnerable today is because it is too often perceived as -- too narrowly. there are tons of debate. i participated about how effective it is as a constraint and whether or not it is still needed in those ways. what i want to suggest or close with is a thought that it is more than a constraint. it is more than constrained local power. even if it had somehow evolve or developed into a non existent

threat even if that were true, it is still performing what i think is a critical function, in helping localities assess and resolve this the issues that are recurring an unavoidable issues like how much influence latino voters to have in texas. these questions are not amenable to a permanent solution. they will come up again and again. the reason is not that racial intent necessarily a underlies the resolution, but because the discrimination or rose in the first place, and our longstanding efforts to address the have shaped the political landscape in an enduring way. all public officials need to confront these complex issues, and i think the voting rights act provides critical assistance in helping them through this in ways that are not just constraining but frankly, in powering. i have more to say, but i think

this system should do more than bolstered the regimes of validity. i think it provides an independent basis for it. i will stop there. >> i am joshua thompson. i want to thank you for inviting me here. a and a replacement for abigail. she has probably forgotten more about the voting rights act and i will ever know. i will try to develop a thesis i think she would support, and that is that section 5 of the voting rights act is unconstitutional, and that the court will find it unconstitutional. my thesis is not that section 5 of the voting rights act was always unconstitutional,. section five requires covered states in this out to achieve

preclearance as originally understood. it must be congruent and proportional, though that standard was disputed in northwest austin. the latest shelby county case agrees it must be congruent and proportional. in other words section 5 must be congruent and proportional remedy to achieving enfranchisement for minorities. and section 5 was passed in 1965 we were 100 years after the 15th amendment. we were in an extreme state of discrimination disenfranchisement of african- americans. justice thomas in northwest austin recalled a candidate who urged white voters to shoot in their tracks in the african- american caught voting. alabama had 19% registration

rate, while white voting in these states was well over 50% higher. how did the state's achieving rampant disenfranchisement of blacks? at that time was done through literacy testing, but more importantly, it was a continuous effort by the south over 100 years to change and amend the voting practices to disenfranchise african- americans. these literacy tests, for example, would ask things as ridiculous as how many bubbles or in a soap bar or they would ask them to read the contents of the beijing daily which was a course in mandarin. -- which was, of course, in mandarin. it was seen at that time as an extreme, a temporary remedy.

chief justice warren when section 5 was first up for constitutionality, called it an uncommon exercise of congressional power that would not have been appropriate absent these unique circumstances present in the target jurisdiction. section 5, providing that some of the states cannot pass state laws or adopt a state constitutional amendments without first being compelled to approve their policies. to render any distinctions between state and federal power almost meaningless. one of the basic premises on which are structured girl was found was that the federal government would have searched the city can limited powers, and no others, and all powers to be reserved effectively for the people. despite the rampant intentional discrimination going on at the time section 5 was adopted, the

supreme court and the justice department all recognize the temporary need, but recognized it was an extreme remedy that was only justified by the times it was passed. and argue that it was a congruent and proportional response to discrimination in voting in 1965. section 5 of the voting rights act was constitutional, it was passed, and remained constitutional for some time after that. sometimes good legislation produces this result which section 5 did. nearly immediately after section 50 was adopted mississippi which in 1964 had 7% black registration, jumped to 60% within three years. alabama went to 52%. the situation continue to improve over the years that section 5 was in force. to the state now where we

covered jurisdictions in the south, their state legislatures are 31-45% african-american. a previous one party system has evolved into a two-party system. but the reasons why i decide that the times -- the reason i want to argue it is unconstitutional are twofold. one, that the covered jurisdictions cannot be distinguished from the uncovered jurisdictions in terms of discrimination presently occurring. secondly section 5 does not address modern voting problems. the jurisdictions that are currently covered are not currently the jurisdictions that generally experience the most egregious voting rights allegations. 2000 the main allegations of discrimination were coming from florida. 2004, it was ohi