business. we know through research conducted by the national center for school engagement that bullying adversely affects school attendance and we also know that kids exposed to violence are more likely to experience a host of problems ranging to depression and later delinquency and criminal t. since more than 60% of american children encounter some form of violence, either directly or indirectly we are not talking about a small group of people. this is a concern for us and the department of justice. four years ago we launched a program to address this. as part of that initiative we're funding eight sites that are using evidence-based strategies. one of the big advantages that we have is the task force was

chaired by bob, now head of the office of juvenile justice. so we can be assured that the recommendations that came out of that work aren't going to sit on a shelf. they are going to be worked on and used and hopefully implemented by you all. so six of the sites vs incorporated an anti-bullying component. one site is in north dakota where 10,000 youth have been reached. we're making a special effort to deal with the challenges facing american indian and alaskan native children. a national task force spent the last year traveling the country holding hearings to find out how we can addressed the many problems faced by native children. under attorney general holder's

leadership the department is also playing a leading role with the department of education in the support of school discipline which you heard earlier from roberto. which is designed to foster safe and supportive school climates and to keep kids on the road to academic success and out of the school prison pipeline. our office of juvenile justice and delinquency funded an online safety program for kids which teaches them how to deal with cyber bullying and other online threats. many of the internet against crimes children task forces across the country that we support are working to raise the awareness of the problem and a number of other programs address bullying by working to increase protective factors and create safe climate in schools and homes and i hope you hear the recurring themes we're all dealing with, we all are focused on this issue and leveraging our resources to

support each other's work and that's what makes this so special. on top of the training awareness and funding we're supporting research to better understand what works to prevent bullying and ameal yor rate the impact. as part of the defending childhood, our research arm at the department of justice launched a program of research focused on children exposed to violence with a focus on cyber bullying. as part of this violence against women's research project, nij has supported studies examining the relationship between bullying and teen dating violence. nij is also making funding available for research and projects to test models that address a host of school safety issues including bullying and our initiative will dove tale nicely with the one deb announced. we are collaborating and that's

the hallmark of this is we're working together, not in our own silos. finally, i'm pleased to announce a new video resource an overview of school districts federal obligation to respond to harassment. this has been developed in a .ollaboration you'll hear from pam shortly. the video explains schools' obligation to respond to bullying and harassment under federal civil rights laws. it provides helpful information to ensure students learn in safe, healthy, and nondiscriminatory climates. we hope it will be shared widely so schools will be better informed of their responsibilities and students will understand their rights. secretary of education ane duncan provides opening

omments. we're excited that this video also features narration by morgan freeman and i have to tell you a story. i don't do this well as you will see shortly. i'm not meant to be an actress but morgan freeman was doing this so i walked in looking for morgan freeman, he's not there. he nare rates and does a wonderful job of that. schools have a responsibility to create safe learning environments for all students. when bull yig or harassments is sed on a protective class or bullying of a student with a disability affects that student's ability to receive an education, they have the tools to use the

available. we'll show a clip of the video in just a moment to catch -- to watch the full verks i encourage you to visit www.stop bullying.gov. which also has many, many other additional resources. i would be remiss if i didn't mention that we're joined in all of our efforts by our partners in our office on violence against women. they are very active between looking at the relationships. the cops office and the department of civil rights division of the department of justice who all serve on the federal partner steering can he. and i know their leadership and staff are strongly committed to keep our young people safe from harm. there's no question the consequences of bullying, whether physical attacks or online hah lassment are serious and unfortunately sometimes

deadly. bullying threatens immediate safety and can also jeopardize a young person's future by causing psychological problem pross, by interfering with academic performance, and by potentially leading to involvement with the justice system. we have an obligation to dedicate our resources and our talents to stop bullying behaviors. we must continue that work we started and build on the successes that so many of you have made possible. we owe it to our children. so thank you for taking this time and for everything you all do in your community for our children. after the video you're going to hear from pam who is the administer of the substance abuse administration. o thank you. >> the u.s. d.o.t. department of justice, federal civil rights laws protect students from harassment. these laws protect students

from harassment when it's based on their actual or perceived race, color, national origin, sex, which may include gender identity, gender expression, and pregnancy, religion, and disability. under these laws, harassment is defined as unwelcomed conduct based on a protected class. what does it look like? a group of asian american students at a high school is harassed daily, assaulted, and told to go back to china forcing them to walk around the building to get to class. this is harassment based on students' race and national origin. comments are made to muslim students and students perceived to be muslim, mocking their culture and suggesting the students are terrorists. one student is told that he will be beatenen up for having a copy of the koran in the locker. a fight breaks out.

this is harassment based on national origin and religion. classmates of a gay high school student write anti-gay slurs and sexual comments on his locker and physically assault, threaten, and ridicule him because he does not conform to stereo typical notions of how teen aged boys are expected to act or appear. title 9 protects all students even if the targets are members of the same sex. although title 9 does not prohibit discrimination based solely on sexual orientation this example also includes sexual harassment and harassment based on sex stereo types because this student was harassed for failing to act as some of his peers believed a boy should act. harass yt creates a hostile environment when the conduct is sufficiently serious to interfere with or limit a students' ability to participate in or benefit from

the school's program on the basis of a protected class. federal civil rights laws require a school district to investigate and to respond appropriately. whether a hostile environment xists. >> i think you all can clap for hat. thank you, carol. it's great to have the kind of collaborators that we have at the department of justice, department of education, white house and other places to produce things like this and to actually work on this issue. i do want to thank carol and deb and roberto and all the staff working on this issue. and i especially want to thank he sam sa staff.

caitlyn i think is also here from our office and you can see in a little bit why our communications office is so important. i want to echo my cletion's thanks to the federal partners in bullying prevention for this year's work. prevention is number one priority and so seeing the focus on prevention of bullying is an important thing from our perspective. i'm very pleased also to be representing not just sam sa but the whole department of health and human services which is always a privilege. we partner in bullying prevention within the department of health and human services including the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation and the assistant secretary for public affairs. we also have the centers for disease control and prevention or you know them as c.d.c. probably and the health resources and services

administration we affectionately call them hrsa, and our office of adolescent health. we also have the whole national institutes of health and a number of the institutes within that agency, our valued partners who bring forward expertise, for example, from the national institute on alcohol abuse and alcoholism, on drug abuse, the national institutes of mental health, and the national institute of child and human development. so we have lots of partners within h.h.s. and i bring their greetings and colleagues collegial relationships. some of them may be here today. these partners have been working together in creating synergy and building opportunities to address bullying on multiple fronts including research, practice, and policy. this partnership and this summit and all of the hard work done by so many on so many levels couldn't be more needed

or timely. it's good that we've had the fourth one of these and thank the president and the first lady for their leadership on it. but these kind of issues don't get solved in a day. we all know that. it takes time and it takes commitment over time. so we really want to maintain this focus. there's too much harm, too many harmful things touch the lives of america's kids that we can prevent and we can stop. and being bullied or bullying others is one of them. now, everybody's talked a little bit about their own family or their own projection in terms of their education or their relationship to education. i've got to tell you i am proudly the son of an assistant principal. and he certainly between being the teacher of an elementary school kids and a coach and a junior high setting and now anen assistant principal at the high school level has seen much of this and talks about it and is very interested.

so i get by vicarious living his interest in this issue as well. bullying is about so much more than unhappy kids or mean kids. it's about underaged drinking, substance abuse, addiction, emotional and mental health problems, about crime, violence, trauma, and frankly unfortunately about suicide. and combined, it's about paying attention now or paying the consequences later. children who are bullied are you've heard some of this are four times more likely to engage in delinquent behavior and subzans abuse and carry behaviors well into adulthood. i think that's why this is so important. children don't come to us as a justice kid or an education kid or a mental health kid. they come to us as a child. and in a family, in a community that have multiple issues. children who are bullied often suffer from low self-esteem

anxiety and depression and as a nation we now fully understand that behavioral health is absolutely essential to overall health. you can't separate those so it's easy to understand kids who are bullied often often have compromised physical health and well being. children who are bullied or are bullies are at the greatest risk for suicidal thoughts and bavers. h.h.s. has a particular interest in lgbt youth and i do obviously as well. lgbt youth experience more bullying generally including physical violence and injury at school than their heterosexual peers. for example, c.d.c. report that eight out of ten lgbt students have been verbaly harassed at school with four out of ten being physically harassed and six out of ten feel unsafe and one out of ten have been the victim of physical assault at

school. in grades 7-12 lgb youth are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers. and transgender adults have some of the highest violence against them of any other group in the country. famsa takes bulin seriously. young adults are at the core of the efforts. they are also at the core because half of all adult mental healths begin before the age of 14 and three quarters before the age of 24. so if we're going to deal with adult mental health issues we've got to deal with them when they're kids. 18-25-year-olds are almost double that of the general population and suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-24-year-olds. and when you see young kids as young as 8, 9, 10, 11, taking

their lives after histories of bullying, it's particularly compeling. youth who start drinking before age 15 are five times more likely to develop alcohol dependence or abuse later in life than those who begin drinking at age 21 or older. so every day we can keep a young person from drinking, etsdz day or month or year that we can have them wait the more likelihood they will not get into dependence and abuse. these are just some of the reasons why preventing and supporting bullying efforts stopping bullying should be on everyone's radar. now, h.h.s. cares and bullying prevention is clearly on our radar. partly because we provide the building blocks that america needs to live healthy successful lives to reduce everything we can to reduce and mitigate its impact. we've got a lot going on at h.h.s. currently definitions of bullying as you know you've

heard already they were inconsistent in making it difficult to know the true magnitude and impacted of the problems so c.d.c. and others partnered to develop a uniformed definition of bullying. this can be used as a tool to help public health practitioners, school officials, researchers and evaluators define and gather data to better inform efforts. you can learn more about this c.d.c..gov. to www. they now put it in my talking points as just c.d.c..gov because you can't say www very fast. you can learn more about it there. and reviewing the youth violence section there. hrsa launched the training center and that includes a tool kit, user guide, specific resources and training modules designed to provide individuals

with research-based tools and resources to organize effective bullying prevention efforts in their communities as well as a terrific info graphic. so if you want to get that, some of those resources go under the prevent bullying tab at stop bullying.gov. you've heard of that resource before. the stop bullying.gov website is something i'm particularly proud of because it was something that h.h.s. and education and justice and others came together on and even within h.h.s. coming up with a common website on something is pretty amazing. and to then take it and give it to education and say you guys need this, so they can lead on that, is a pretty amazing effort. hrsa is also spear heading efforts in medicine to launch a study to reduce bullying and the impact on life course of youth. the national institutes of

health have been conducting research and the national institute on childhood development has administered the survey. publicications based on these data provide the first nationally representative data on bullying prevention rates, national and international oons list of the relationship of bullying with psycho social adjustment and indicators of violence and racial sexaretives in some of the very first data to address cyber bullying. and that's just a small sampling of what's been going on. i want to tell you about what's been going on in samsa. we just produced a trauma informed care tip we call it. it's something that's six or seven years in the making. it's a treatment improvement protocol and we're act to release a trauma informed approach definition with some technical assistance and bro shrs.

and there is a relationship obviously. trauma is a kind of trauma and as we've learned across justice, education, behavior health programs, having some common approach and thinking about trauma and its impact or how we deal with it is also important. last october, we were excited to launch the media guidelines for reporting on bullying that are housed on stop bullying.gov website providing reporters and news content developers with guidelines recommendations and tools to responsibly report on bullying. you'll have an opportunity to hear more about them in a breakout later today in our office of communications helps with some of that work. as you heard deb mention we've been partnering with our colleagues to advance the president's plan to increase awareness of mental health issues and access to mental health services outlined in the now is the time plan. it was proposed and funded this

plan was proposed and funded after the december 2012 newtown connecticut tragedy. we're in the process of collectively among us collectively awarding over 100 grants to state and local education agencies to create safe and healthy students and cool environments, and to increase mental health literacy among youth, school personnel, parents, and community partners. some of those grants will be jointly funded and others funded using some common approaches. these grants will help us build and improve systems to support the needs of students and to train adults who interact with kids on how to understand the signs and symptoms and how to refer those who need care to services. the grants are developed collaboratively with education and justice and our hope is these awards will build upon and support one another and teach us what we can do across the rest of the country to bring these to bear.

now, i'm particularly honored to officially announce the release of something we're just releasing called no bullying. it's a free mobile ap developed by samsa in conjunction with our federal partners. no bullying spelled with k nrn ow bullying puts the power to prevent bullying in your hands. that's you as a parent, you as care giver, educator, school administer, research shows that spending at least 15 minutes a day talking with your children can help prevent bullying, something that simple. the no bullying ap empowers parents and care givers to prevent bullying by providing information and communication support to help build a closer relationship with children and in turn their children can find it easier to go to them when they have a problem. as my colleagues have mentioned studies show that almost a fifth of students in grades 9-12 have been bullied and

almost 15% have experienced cyber bullying. so there's a very real need for the no bullying ap. we're hopeful that everybody will use it. here are some of the really cool features. parents have access to age appropriate conversation starters right at their fingertips. parents tell us over and over again whether it's about alcohol use or bullying, they don't know how to start the conversation. so these are some conversation starters. scheduling function allows parents to customize reminders at times that fit into their families schedules such as walking home or at dinnertime. so this notion of a smart phone you've seen that ad tells you when to do these things. the ap also will help parents learn to recognize learning signs that their children may be bullying or being bullied or witnessing bullied. so the ap provides strategies so they can prevent bullying in

classrooms and support children who are being bullied. it's available for free on i phones and on android smart phones. you can learn more by visiting the store.samsa.gov. i would love to highlight more accomplishments but i know it's time to get on with the rest of the day. you have a very packed agenda today. i want to thank you so much for participating and i hope yowl all leave here a little more knowledgeable enlightnd and committed to doing whatever it takes to make sure no child regardless of their shape size orientation race religion intelligence mental health status disability status, no child, no child and no teen experiences some hue millation fear taunting or den gration at the hands and at the voices of others who share their school hallways, their sports fields, school buses or their sidewalks. these children and youth are

our neighbors kids. they are our own children. friends class mates and sports or dance team members. they may be our own children. they may be our own children's children. and frankly if we don't make sure they are safe, they may be the next bullies. the next inmates. or the next suicide deaths that we read about. instead, we need them to be our next teachers, our next scientists, lawyers, business owners. and yes even our next federal employees and policy makers. and to be those things they need to be healthy both physically and psychologically. we all need them and so they need all of you. thank you so much for what you do. i hope you enjoy the summit today. [applause]

> knew, michael, here at the department of education. [applause] >> thank you. good morning, everyone. how are you all doing? i'm really thrilled to be here. i got here a little bit late, i was stuck on a train in a tunnel for 40 minutes so i missed deb's remarks and roberto's remarks. i know they were amazing because they are so committed in preventing bullying. so i'm sorry i didn't get to hear them speak. i do want to thank deb and dave and the team for putic this together. this is the fourth time we're coming together to do this. this is amazing. i thank my staff. you'll hear from a couple later today. this issue is really, really important to all of us. this is a great opportunity for educators and advocates and

parents and leaders to come together to really figure out our partners at the department of justice and health and human services to really figure out how do we make sure that our educators, our -- the adults in our lerge environments have the tools and the resources to prevent and address and respond to bullying? empowering changes in the school so that we know that all kids truly have the opportunities to learn and thrive. we need to make sure that we're addressing the needs of kids as well as the academic needs of kids. students with disabilities are kids proportionately affected by bullying. any number of factors, physical characteristics, poor social skills, intolerant environments may increase the risk of a student with disability is bullied. further we are know that students with intellectual disabilities, with communication processing emotional disabilities may not

understand fully the extent to actually to which they are being bullied or may not understand how to communicate that they are being bullied to an adult. we know recent story of a young man with autism who was subjected to abuse and bullying and defended the other students who bullied him as his friends. we know this is a real problem. for these reasons last year our office put out some guidance that clarified schools' obligations under idea act that said that as a student with disabilities is bullied regardless of whether the bullying is a result of the disability, but if a student with disabilities is bullied and that results in a student not receiving a meaningful educational benefit, that will e that constitutes a denial of

a free appropriate public education and that must be recommendied. we hope that this guidance provides schools and parents and educators with some real useful tools to move forward. what does this mean? this means that if a student is getting bullied and is afraid to walk down the hall because he's getting bullied and doesn't get services or doesn't go to class, it's a denial. if he's not getting a meaningful educational benefit because he is a afraid or if he's being bullied and they said we need to move this kid denial.er environment so again we hope this really continues to serve as a resource and to schools and to parents and educators. but the key -- and i apologize that i didn't hear deb's remarks but i am confident deb

talked about climate and how we have to address climate. that is absolutely the key. bullying not only threatens the physical and emotional safety of children but it creates climates of fear and disrespect , creating conditions that negatively impact student learning. undermining a kid's ability to achieve to their fullest potential. when students don't feel safe, they can't thrive. and are more likely to give up. for all kids, including students with disabilities, including lgbt youth, positive school climate means a school climate that is both safe and inclusive, where every child is treated as a valued and precious member of that community by their peers and their staff. when i talk about safety we talk about meaning physical emotional safety at all times on all the grounds of the school during all school activities.

it means that staff are vigilant. and that classmates are ready to help safe guard other students from physical forms of aggression or being singled out or ostricized or excluded. when we talk about inclusive we mean that every child has access to all facets of the school environment and social fabric of the school. that students with physical disabilities or lrn gbt youth are welcomed and able to participate in gym and they don't have to sit on the sidelines and just watch. that clubs and extra curricular activities are open and available to all students providing youth with new ways to engage. and it also means that every child's access to instruction is prioritized and exclusionry discipline practices such as suspension and expulsion are used rarely and only as a last resort. so what are the key challenges? and you are going to have an incredible day and there's so

much to do there's so much work but i want to identify some of the key challenges here. really it's do youth have the social and emotional awareness? do they have the social and emotional tools to understand and recognize and address bullying bares? in themselves and in others? i could say the same for staff. do staff have the training? are they equipped to respond to and address bullying? and create cultures and climates in their schools that are safe and healthy and thriving? do our policies and our practices convey to students and establish that each student is welcomed and essential to the community? or do our practices unintentionally or not result in isolation and exclusion? so -- and i've heard deb say this and so i don't know if she

said it today or not but i've heard her say this that what we offer our children tells them what we value. we say that a lot. right? address forts for to this must be rooted in our climates where every student has the opportunity to learn and thrive. thank you. have a great great conference. [applause] >> several panel discussioning were hell at the summit including the one on social and emotional learning. the aim of the summit is to build on the goal of creating a national strategy while engaging private and public organizations to help ensure student safety. it's close to an hour.

renee has served as the project officer for the national center on positive behavioral interventions and supports for the last 16 years and we're very pleased to have her here today. if everyone can give her a round of applause. [applause] >> good morning. sorry about the break. i know it's hard to sit. so don't feel like you can't get up and run. obviously mark did. i'm glad i went a little earlier.

i'm glad to be here today. i already disappointed my friend kathrine saying george wasn't here. i know others are disappointed as well. i will do my best to represent the work of the center. there's a whole group associated with this national center. it's been funded by the department for 16 years now. we're just getting ready to go into our 17th year. and it's not only the folks who work directly with the center. it's the folks in over 20,000 schools across the country that have helped implement this and worked in the trenches and really pushed us to expand our work not just within the department of education but also with justice and the mental health folks. there's a lot of information i'm sure these slides are available to folks at some point so i'm not going to spend -- i'm not going to go through them word by word but will highlight them as i go through. there's a lot of information as

i said. and i won't have time to do all of it justice so i encourage you to go to the site. it has a wealth of information not only information on the knowledge base but also tools that you can use to look at fidelity and implementation and blueprints to help you start implementing the program as well. when we look at a ranging structure, we're in a point now in time where the attention on social emotional behavioral needs i don't think has ever been greater. i've been with the department for 17 years now and i remember it coming up and bubbling up. right now it seems cross agency that everyone is very concerned about addressing the social emotional behavioral needs of children. our collective history in this area is very strong.

and there are lots of practices that we know work. our challenge now seems to be how do we organize these practices in some kind of structure that schools and communities and mental health providers can implement them? we all know that putting one more thing on a teacher's plate is almost impossible so how do we help them implement practices in a more efficient way? my job today is to talk about positive behavior interventions and support. talk about what it is and how it can serve as a foundation or structure for helping schools to organize their practices in a better way. pbis was a term that originally appeared in the idea stat tulet. you also may hear it referred to as schoolwide pbis, multitiered framework, systems of support. what you call it doesn't matter. it's that the core components that we've identified are

implemented within the individual frameworks. so what are we talking about? we're talking about a framework for enhancing the adoption and implementation of a continuum of evidence-based interventions to achieve both academically and behaviorally important outcomes for all students. sorry. this clicker has a mind of its ofpblete when we're talking about what we want to do we want to establish the capacity for improving classroom and school climate. other objectives that dove tale nicely with the talks this morning how we decrease reactive management maximizing academic achievement to achieve the goals that we want to achieve broadly looking at pulling all the different behavioral and social emotional initiatives together. a lot of times people ask what

is school climate? what is a positive school climate? how can you see it when you go into a school? do you see it? do you feel it? deb said this morning walk into a school and you can know by just your first time is it a good place to be? is it a place you would want your children? when you walk into a school that has a positive climate? we might see posters up identifying behavioral responses expected of children, we may not see a long line of children in the hallway waiting to see the assistant principal for various issues and problems. we may not hear stories of children that feel like they can't participate, attend school, and we also may see students's peers telling their other peers what they expect appropriate bare is within the school environment. it's important to look at before we go into the pbis look at what we're talking about.

this isn't just our pbis work. it long preseeds that. when we talk about an effective organization we're talking about a group of people whose collective bavers are towards a certain outcome and they have a common goal that's maintained by this outcome. and what the thing that is are important to include in that would be is there a common language? when we say be responsible, is everyone in the school adults children do they know what that means when they say be respectful of self and others? so establishing a common language. also, establishing a common vision and values. our actions should be driven by our vision and values. in order to do that within a schoolwide unit we need to make sure that most folks in that unit share the same vision and values. we heard earlier about folks having time to talk about it at the dinner table. we also have to give teachers and practitioners time to talk about it as part of their work.

is there a common experience? are expectations clear? are consequences consistent? so the vision and all of this is directed by quality leadership. not just resting solely on the shoulders of principal or administer but on a leadership team that is established to make sure all of these things function effectively. i want to talk just a little bit about the organization and move into some cycles that we see existing in school. you heard today deb talk about the changing adult behavior. michael also said similar comments about changing adult behavior. let's just look at what kid bavers might look like in a negative school climate. so we see such behaviors as noncompliance, noncooperation.

we see violent and aggressive behaviors, certainly bullying bavers likely in this type of environment. what we are very good at identifying the thing that kids are doing. what we're often not identifying is the thing that is the adults are doing in that environment. so what are the things that might be seen in the adult bavers in this environment? you might see more reactive management, more use of exclusionry practices, inefficient organization, poor leadership, ineffective strategies for delivery of instruction. and what happens here is that you see this coercive cycle. one of these kind of leads to the other so you get more reactive and it's very difficult to break out of the cycle. ane duncan when he released the guidance this year one of the comments he made was it's not just about fixing the kids, it's about changing the adult behavior. what are the adults doing in the context and environment of

schools? what do we do to both prevent the behavior from occurring in the first place and what do we do to respond to that behavior, to ensure that it does not continue to occur? so this coercive cycle that we don't think a lot about. so let's look at the flip side of that. a more positive reinforcement cycle. so in a school that is engaging in implementing a more positive approach to social emotional and behavioral sections of child's development we see more positive than negative comments. we see a challenging academic curriculum. we see kids engaged in instruction, a safe learning environment, opportunities to learn. the work we've been engaged in over the last 16 years is trying to address this coercive cycle. so how do we deliberatively organize school environments to foster more positive and

preventative approaches to social emotional behavioral needs of children? what do we do in adults? this is what school does. so what do we see from the children in this type of environment? the social emotional and behavioral skills that we all want to see from all of our children. we see more compliance and cooperation, we see more engagement and participation, we see a safe and clean environment, safe and supportive faculty, student interactions. so what do we do with adults and what do we want to see? promoting positive factors and decreasing the risk factors that exist. so the focus has been for years is looking at this cycle and how can we move it to a more positive approach? how do we as adults behave and organize the environment to promote more positive outcomes? this is an important conversation because when we're looking at everyone's engaged

in change and reform now, everyone is trying to make every school a better place for all of our children. so -- and what do we know about change? we know that change is really difficult. right? and it takes a lot of time and energy. so it's important for us to look at, is there any way that we can jumpstart change? is there any way to make it a little faster or a little less intensive? one of the ideas that we're seeing in the schools that we're working with looking at school climate is one of the ways we can do this is to kind of look at where this coercive cycle is and move this from primarily negative based cycle to what? a more positive based cycle. not saying it's easy or the silver bullet but it's an observation that we've been making in our schools. we're looking at how can we jumpstart the implementation and change that we want to see in schools to create climates that are conducive to

supporting the behaviors that we want to see in our children. so what's it going to take to shitcht in this direction? if -- shift in this direction? if we want to look at positive school climate, i enjoyed the remarks earlier, many of these were touched on, so we need to be precise, explicit. and we need to implement for sustainability over the long haul. so not something we change every year, that it's a three to five year commitment. it's a priority and something that the school and staff agree to stick to. you see participatory leadership, you see that where data based decision maybing teaching behavior explicitly within schools. this is not unlike what we said we have to do for academics for many, many years. this is taken from response to intervention or multitiered system of support looking at how we promote reading and math within schools. so the same practices that we would expect for reading and math need to be part of how we

implement social emotional and behavioral practices within a school. so we have a continuum of intervention, content and fluency from the staff and the school on behavioral social emotional and behavioral issues. we have teen-based interventions. we universally screen. we provide the services, needs and supports the students need. when we look, the triangle is not unfamiliar to anyone in this room. this was the public health model that we originally started doing the work off of. unfortunately, people started labeling kids green red and yellow. that was not the intent at all. so overtime we changed it to a more blended model to try to get rid of that emphasis. and it really is a continuum that we want to emphasize no t the stat tick tiers. and you see in this the kind of thinking behind the framework is we're going to do something for everyone. so skills will be addressed in

all schools. they're going to be some kids that need more support and a few kids that need our most intensive best effort. so not only do the interventions move from universal to more intensive support. it also, the expertise in the school should move from a more universal expertise to a more directive and specific support for students. the students that have the highest needs should get our best not if opposite. it's also important to look within the triangle that not every kid fits everywhere. it's not always a most intepsive need or not always in the universal. this is a young man. if you were to plot his progress in his academic and social life in school, you can see here he does real well with peer interactions and homework and cooperative play. he's pretty good with attendance. and his technology. his issues are with anger

management and problem solving. so when you're looking at this kid, you would set up the delivery of the resources interventions and supporteds for this kid based on these needs. so we would spend the most time on what? anger management and problem solving skills. that same triangle can apply to a school. when we're looking at school reform and whole school work this support is determined by a student need, how intepsive we are, not by the student's label, their zip code or how they look. you heard someone else bring that up this morning. the same thing with the school. not all schools need the same thing. so when we're working within a school, we would do the same thing with a school. how are they on their basic mental health services? how do they do with attendance? with teacher retention? with office discipline referrals, exclusion and suspension? so you plot a school. what are their strengths and

weaknesses? and that helps you decide how you're going to put your resources in place. that's the thinking behind some of the department's work on differentiated ta that we want all schools to move in this direction. but how we get them there is dependent on the schools resources. you'll also have a slide. and this is an important thing to remember. we have typically -- not typically but some of the criticism that has been said about the pbis model is that it's a recipe or that you have to do this this this. and that's not truly accurate. because what we've done is looblingd at the core of the critical components. how those are implemented is up to -- is flexible and can be customized by a school or a district. so if you look at here we've got primary prevention.

you'd want behavior as a priority. hude want to have -- you'd want to have consistency in responding to behavior. you'd want to have some kind of schoolwide system in place. but there's no direction or have to about what you choose to do within your given school or district. so what we've done is focused on the core components. that goes back to it doesn't really matter what you call it. it's that we're implementing these core components. if you look through the three ears that we've laid out here, you'll see pretty generic statements of what you should include. and then it's up to the school-based team and based on their data to fill in those. dr. lieu did a great job of talking about the three kind of components to move policy forward and practice that we know works. this is kind of implementation

structure that we developed over time. it was for a long time like, you need a great leadership team and they can do everything. and then it was you need these coaches here and these other components. and then schools and states would be doing a great job with that. and then there wasn't a lot of funding available or the politicals were not seeing the benefits of what was happening in individual schools or districts. so we kind of laid out this concept of what are the implementation drivers? and what this does for you is it calls you just to consider all of the different thing that is have to be put into place both your top-down approach and your bottom up and top down approach. and this leadership team is really important because they're kind of the glue that holds everything together. so when you're thinking about implementation, this just gives you an idea about all the multiple components that are involved with that. another slide that we've recently developed gives you

the concept of this just doesn't happen in one place at one level. so what is the state responsibility or the regional or responsibility? what are the districts' responsibilities? what are the inhouse school responsibilities? why is this important? because the whole thing we're trying to do is increase a capacity. so do you have capacity at the state level to address this? do i have capacity at the district level? does your school have capacity? it's fine to have external coaches but we want to help districts and schools also develop their internal abilities to provide coaching and support to teachers as they implement. this is another graphic that we have found to be real useful in the work we've done and if you look at the top two blue bubbles, that's more on the kind of readiness perspective.

if you've studied the implementation science research , karen and dean have worked on are people ready to implement change. so setting up your team and agreements, that's part of your readiness and ability to get ready to do a new change. and then this bottom looks at our implementation effort. what are we doing based on our data, how are we customizing the action plans three to five years, the implementation is what we really do. and then that feeds into evaluation which then feeds back into how we do it. so there's a continuous improvement cycle in our implementation. slide and y last comment has to do with learning over years and we have had these three circles systems data and practices for a long time education's been great with the practices where we've fallen down is organizing those into systems that support and

maintain those practices. and basing the choice of our practices on data not the slickest binder or the greatest salesman but the data on what we truly need. and then so for years we went on this. and then what we were noticing is that bias was really a factor that we needed to considering. and so we're making a concerted effort to look very deliberatively at cultural factors that affect our decision and implementation as we go through. so it's how do we support culturally valid decision making? how do we support culturally relevant practices and knowledgeable staff behavior? so the goal of the multitiered framework is for schools to have an organization structure that helps direct how adults behave in ways that support the social emotional and behavioral needs of children so that they

can feel secure and safe and fully engaged in the learning and educational to achieve the learning and educational outcomes we desire for all children. i'm going to turn it over or sara is going to introduce mark again and i will turn it over to him to talk about a more specific effort in this area. [applause] >> thank you so much. i now have the pleasure of introducing dr. mark bracket et from yale university. he is the lead developer of ruler, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning designed for students, teachers, staff and families. he served on a wide range of boards. he is also working with facebook on two projects including a large-scale investigation to help decrease bullying and a bullying support

center for children families and schools. please welcome mark. [applause] >> good morning, everyone. i think my job is to ask you how your feeling? at least that's what i do er day. so the title of my presentation is emotional intelligence, our best hope for faith caring and effective schools. what i'm hoping to do is to take what our former representative did and show you what it looks like on the ground floor in a school. so i'll talk you through a little bit of our practices but really the implementation piece. a number of colleagues are here in the audience as well as back of the center that i need to appreciate for their hard work. and we have a vision at our center. and as you can imagine our center is called yale center for emotional intelligence.

we believe that emotions matter and we believe they matter for a great deal for lots of things and most importantly for helping kids and adults lead healthy lives to be effective in work and families. and we think the world what we do at our center is two things. we do research and we develop approaches to bring these ideas into educational systems. take a like you to moment and make this a little bit personal. i'm going to ask you to take this a little bit inward. can ask everyone to get ?omfortable in seats if you want to close your eyes, you can do that. please.ice long inhale, exhale. let your bodies get settled. take a moment and think about perhaps one child that you know

who may not be having the best year. perhaps a child in a school, perhaps your own child, perhaps someone else's child. elementary,at middle school, or high school student and put them in your mind. just think about them. think about what it looks like when they wake up in the morning. how does it feel to wake up in a household? their commute to school? when they get to school, think about that child. is that child thinking, this is going to be an empowering, inspiring day? or, yet another day? who is going to hurt me today? what is going to happen to me today when i go to my locker? feedback from teachers, hallways, locker rooms, bathrooms, lunch. sitting alone or with someone else? being talked to were not talk

to? afternoon, after school, back at for thewhat is it like child in the evenings at home? how does this child feel when they put their head on the pillow? i can't wait to get up in the morning? or, i don't want to be there? with that child in mind, i would like you to think about five things. i would like you to think about their attention, memory, learning information. when i went back to visit my school 15 years later, i remember nothing about my school , my middle school. i remember the locker where my hands were slammed and i remember walking the hallways getting pushed around. i did not remember any content. did i remember positive relationships? no. emotions drive our attentional capacities.

they drive how our brains operate. the emotional climates of our schools, the emotions we feel internally impact our ability to learn. they also affect their decision-making and judgment. think about those child's -- children's choices. think about the child experiencing a lot of anger. are they making the best choices? having the best relationships? what is the trajectory for his or her mental health? effective?ild are they getting the grade he or she deserves? likely not. we have developed a model that we call a ruler. in theory of based emotional intelligence developed by my mentors. emotional intelligence and skills. the first is recognizing emotions. think about that scale, in terms of bullying prevention.

how many of you believe that many of the perpetrators of bullying or ms. perceiving other people's facial expressions and body language? -perceiving other people's facial expressions and body language? i remember somebody punching me in shop in high school. i was desperate to get out of class. i kept on looking at the clock. and said,ame over what you looking at? you misperceived my facial expression of boredom for being one of anger toward him. the second skill is understanding of emotion. knowing the causes and consequences of emotions. why am i angry? what is the difference between anger and disappointment? most people think that is easy. anger is about unfairness and injustice. disappointment is about expectations not being met.

emotions. having that sophisticated vocabulary. knowing the difference between feeling annoyed, angry, enraged. known for difference between sad, disappointment, hopeless, despair. on the positive end, it what you enjoy, elation, ecstasy. the fourth is expressing emotions. knowing how and when to express emotions in different contexts. era different rules in schools. -- there are different rules in schools. some schools have open roles. other schools you feel a little bit closed. i will never forget in a school in philadelphia, i walked into the school and the administrative assistant said, whenever there! --wait over there! the principal walked out and said, she really needs your skills. [laughter] i said, you hired this person.

we need to be looking for people in our schools that have the skills. do we want to hire teachers that have these skills? would talk about changing the adults so much. that is a lot of work. when we select people who have these skills? what -- what it we make sure teachers are learning this? the regulation of emotion. your ownof you believe lives would be better if you had more skills to regulate emotion? [laughter] yeah. what about everyone to live with? [laughter] yeah. we know a lot of things about kids who have emotional intelligence. we have studied this in many studies and other universities have done this work. kids who score higher on tests of emotional intelligence have less anxiety, less depression, are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, are less likely to

bully others. we also know that have greater leadership skills more attentive in schools, they perform better academically. pretty good outcomes. we have also studied teachers. teachers with greater emotional intelligence are more positive and schools. they get more support from principles. there also less stressed and burned out. now we are looking at the interactions between and among teachers and students and in classrooms, using tools from the university of virginia where we are coding these interactions in showing that the emotional climate of the classroom, the ability to regard a student's perspective, has density for a students needs, generate positive emotions in the classroom is related to these outcomes. i think all of you would say these are pretty important outcomes. i ask you all a question now. how many of you believe that you

have had a sophisticated emotion education? no one's hand is raised for those of you were watching on television. think about it. how much formal education have any of us received in this area? how money of you learn how to recognize emotions? how many of you have family members who said, let's talk about some research-based strategies on how to manage her emotions. [laughter] i will give you positive reappraisal. there was none of that going on in my life. [laughter] let me share with you what we do. i have strong feelings about this work. from my own personal experiences, but also looking at what happens in schools. we have the privilege of being in well over 1000 schools. my thinking and our center's thinking is that we need to move beyond the list on the left. monitoring hotspots is ok. but what is that going to do long term?

enforcing consequences, counting on bystanders, or think about myself as a kid -- what i have being anourage at 13, introvert and a weakling, to stand up for somebody? on't that a lot to put up -- a kid? why are we expecting to children to -- expecting children to protect other children? think about what we can move to. we know that children have unique needs, that all players need skills. all adults need training. andeed to shift the culture climate. what does it really look like? we have characteristics that you can read here on this list that all of you would agree -- effective approaches have these skills. in terms of a child's emotional , what are the expectations i can have for that child?

to teach a kid in kindergarten about alienation? maybe about loneliness. what about regulating emotions for his or her age? we want to provide the common language. the list goes on. in our approach, we have anchor tools that we teach children and adults. we have four primary tools. we call them the emotional intelligence charter. to teach mood meter self awareness build the capillary. -- to teach self-awareness. make sure thatto we work with everybody who has a face. if you work in the front desk,

we train you. if you work in transportation, we train you. if you work in the office, you get skills to. had a guest speaker talking about how important it was for her secretary to have the skills. she is reading facial expressions of visitors coming to meet her. wait, i don't think you are in the right quadrant of the mood meter to have a meeting with the principal right now. [laughter] rules, not enough feelings. i'm a big proponent of that. i broke every rule there was as a kid. while rules may be important and we may need rules for physical safety, what we do for emotional safety? what do we do to create a healthy emotional climate in schools? we start off with feelings. we ask people how do you want to feel? working in the school? what are the feelings you want to have? we use that as a driver for the behaviors? if you want to feel safe, what does that look like? if you want to feel supported,

what does that look like? these are examples. this is a high school. they want to feel respected, supported, comfortable, spirited. a fifth-grade classroom. included, confident, respected, appreciated, energized, safe, supported. this is a school that works in spanish. we want to feel happy, respected, loved. therefore years old. they want to feel loved. -- they are four years old. they want to feel loved. the mood meter is our signature tool. youmany of you believe that have a sophisticated emotional vocabulary? [laughter] how many of you know the difference between jealousy and envy? shame and guilt? it is complicated. we want to build those -- that

granularity in our nation's children and adults? what we do through the mood meter is teach facial expressions, body language, vocal tones, body language. anger and read. calm, content,e tranquil feelings. there are 2000 words in the english language dictionary to describe our feelings. most of us use four. [laughter] there are lots of words to help us become more granular in our self understanding. we also want to teach strategies for how to manage emotions in these quadrants. what does it look like to get into the yellow? as aone ever woken up teacher or anyone in a position where you are down and disappointed? how many of you have woken up

that way and you have had to go into a room and be the inspiring teacher or leader? it is not easy. what are the strategies we are doing to do that. we focus so much on anger reduction in stress management. generation of positive emotions? what are we doing to teach adults and children's to generate positive emotions in our schools? we want to make sure that everyone understands that emotions drive how we learn. how toach teachers differentiate emotions in their instruction. articulate this. creative writing, yellow. we want to be in the yellow zone. that is going to help you inductive reasoning ability. blue emotions are great for deductive reasoning. you want to collaborate, you want to be in the green. i am in a position where i have opportunity to tell you how i really feel about our nation's

education system. [laughter] i have to be careful. i am in a place where i feel strongly that we need to integrate emotions. i could say it in the yellow and people think, what is the sky, this guy from connecticut, get them out of here. if i say it in red, think about it. it sounds like an alert. sureare we doing to make our nations children are getting the skills they need? a little bit of energy, it is an alert energy. i am holding back. just so you know. [laughter] use ite ways you could in the classroom with special education schools. pull their emotions and faces into an electronic box that says, you feel this way, let the class no. that is a smart board. we've been developed and apt

whereyou can -- an app you can plot where you were feeling and shift into different quadrants to help you manage your emotions effectively. integrated technology where it is useful. it says i'm 51% blue. that means i'm chronically depressed. i'm not. just so you know. [laughter] when i show people this tool, i tend to use people as an example. it would be nice for people to know what percentage of the time they are spending in these different places. for kids to be aware of that. how that is shifting their thinking and judgment and decision-making. right into education, into the classroom. character froma a book. what does he feel. how did he go from being in the yellow to the blue? what is the textbased evidence

to help you understand that emotional life? the third tool is called the meta-moment. the meta-moment is our tool for building self-regulation. there are six steps to this process. what we argue is that if you take the six step seriously, it can change the way you see the world. first, if something happens. how many of you have triggers? how many of you have [laughter]] friends who have triggers? how many of you work with people who have way too many triggers? [laughter] we all have triggers. bullying is usually a result of someone being triggered. --is a perception of someone something that happened in the environment. is teach kidso do about triggers. what are your triggers? be aware of your triggers. how is that shifting her thinking? how was it shifting or physiology? are you feeling when you are you

feeling when you're shifting into that unpleasant place? we have to teach people how to stop and breathe. how many of you breathe? raise your hand. [laughter] how many of you intentionally breathe when you are stressed? two people are raising their hands. [laughter] we know that breathing is a tool. it helps us deactivate. spaceps us to build the so that we can choose and use effective strategies. you have to teach kids that. it does not come naturally. i knew how to pant. i did not know how to breathe when i was a kid. the fourth step is see your best self. what does it mean to have a best self? this idea came about as a collaboration with my colleague who is here today. we realized that the field of emotion regulation was missing something important. it was missing motivation. you have to want to regulate. i was very fortunate in my career that i was named the

feelings master by my students a few years ago. wood is a feelings master? what are the attributes of someone who is a master of his or her feelings? aw do i want to feel as teacher or leader? i want to be compassionate. interestingly enough, we just got done training 100 school leaders yesterday. the number one best self adjective that came out of this group was compassionate. they all want to be more compassionate. when you have the lens of compassion, you choose more effective strategies to manager emotion. could you not? it shifts your capacity from being that best self. you are likely to choose more effective strategies to manage triggers. this is just examples on the classroom. finally, there is a tool called the blueprint that helps to teach perspective taking. it is not just about me. it is about us, it is about we. any to start looking at your emotions in your life and not just paying attention to my

life. that helps us resolve conflicts more effectively. i just want to share with you that we have done a number of studies in this work and in one year we can shift grades by about 11%, we shift behavior in classrooms, school problems and adaptive skills. the graphs are hard to see, but you have this on your hard drive. our work in new york city and some of the most challenging schools -- i was blown away by these data. 51%r just one year, or reduction in school suspensions. think about what that looks like in a classroom or school. the amount of release time that principle has when there is less aggression and less suspensions. we have also shown that implementation matters. it matters a great deal. we have to train teachers to be high-quality implementers of this work. kids emotional intelligence goes up, conflict resolutions and social skills go up.

we have shown that doing this work longitudinally helps teachers become better teachers. by shifting the emotional climate first, making schools and classrooms places where kids want to be literally helps teachers become better teachers. one, i think we all agree that children are wired for good. if we don't agree, there is research to support it. are positive, they will thrive. children's goodness and ability to reach their full potential is ours to nurture or ours to neglect. seethird is that i hope you that teaching emotional intelligence and social emotional learning more broadly has great benefits. first we want to teach children and adults so that we can create a society we want. i want to make one final comment. this is a call to action. we are here together to talk about children's development. we are here to talk about the

nation we want for children to live in. i can't say with a stronger heart that it is our nation's responsibility to take seriously the emotionaland education of its children. thank you very much. [applause] >> i would like to thank marc and rené for giving such fantastic presentations. now we will have time to take a few questions. we will start with your question. that camea question in through social media, through facebook. it is for our first speaker.

are there examples of consequences teachers can put in place to hold children who bully accountable? >> yes. there are examples. i would encourage them to go to bis website and g.gov website. i am hedging because of time. i'm not sure i can get issued -- short, appropriate answer to that question. i would encourage them to go to the website. also the websites have strategies for practitioners and responding to different types of problem or challenging behavior, including bullying. that would be my guidance. they can contact me directly if they cannot find what they're looking for.

>> question for rené. i have seen pbis be so transformative in schools. extremely transformative. perplexing -- they equated pbis with school climate reform efforts when i see that they are fundamentally different. do you see any of those differences with school climate improvement in the goals of what pbi s tries to do and school climate reform tries to do? >> i personally don't see a great difference between the two. i worked with safe and healthy students on those grants. areas wherelot of we still need a good bit of

research. . i would point you to the research to look at and hopefully some will be talked about this afternoon. you move over time and transform with everything. our initial work with the pbis center was to look at children with emotional and behavioral disabilities and how we could create environments that were more conducive to them being included in a regular public school setting. as we began that work, what became very obvious and looking at how the triangle is set up as the basis for the framework was that if a school was not addressing social emotional behavior needs of all the children, it was very difficult

to ask schools to put energy and effort and time into addressing those that were most needy. you will see a good bit of research that looks at reductions in suspensions, reduction in office discipline referrals, reduction in out of school time. the great thing about seeing those reductions is that it gives teachers and administrators more time to do with they are supposed to be doing, to address structural needs, to add the social-emotional work that mark is talking about. what we are trying to do is use some of the lessons learned from the pbis work and to use some of those lessons learned and move that into a basis for some of the schools climate transformation grant. hopefully you see more of a connection than not. fundeds center will be to help the school climate

transformation grant. more than justg looking at it from a children with disabilities perspective and into a larger perspective and working with all of those grantees. if there are not any other questions, i'm going to turn it over to sharon burton for the next one a recession. but give another -- there's another question. could you? >> what kind of provisions or strategies do you have for the significant percentage of children and adolescents that have difficulties in processing language? they cannot recognize social cues. not talking about pervasive disorders, i'm just talking

about kids with language, perceptive, and expressive developmental delays. >> that is a great question. our approach is primarily a tier one intervention approach. are a universal approach. with that said, we have had a lot of experience working with the new york city department of education, specifically district 75, reaching kids who have those differences are needs. what we have found works the best is local adaptations. working with the technology that is school has for those children is the best way to go. there are some examples of that. challenges oratory with speaking could not share anything verbally. they build a system where they could take our mood meter and have kids move their facial expressions into the quadrants to communicate effectively. i had a question about, and

our district, we are seeing an increase in the number of gangs or crews that are forming at younger ages. i'm wondering whether either one of you has used your strategies in dealing particularly with that issue and if you have suggestions for us? >> we have worked and school districts where there have been significant high levels of violence and aggression. again, this local adaptation piece is so critical. you have to understand the culture and the climate of that school. you have to understand the demographics, were these kids are coming from, what are their mindsets around this work. with that in mind, there are things. this best self piece that we talk about. the meta-moment for self-regulation. some of these kids have never even thought about what that even means to them. him on a deep level to get that idea ingrained into

their lives by thinking about outside role models and others, having them learn a little but about short-term versus long-term strategies and perspective taking can go a long way. is not a magic, there is no magic pill for those types of environments. they require pretty focused interventions. >> i would add to that the importance -- i know what one quickly through a lot of the visuals, but if you look at the visual and go to the website, the importance of setting a context that is conducive to the behaviors that you want to see. so that adults are reinforced, they are teaching that, they are reinforcing the behaviors. i was mostly with elementary engaged children. ago, within aars high school in chicago, when they are changing classes -- that is the scariest part of school -- is when all of these kids are in the hallway together. most of them are tolerant than i am in the first place. i don't know if it was staged,

but one of the kids got knocked up against the locker in the hallway and another kid came up and is the kind -- when you're establishing a culture and climate, there is no one thing that is going to do everything. when you have peers telling other peers with the expected behavior is, it is almost like being inappropriate -- displaying inappropriate behavior comes a not cool thing to be in some of these schools. that is just an example that came to mind about the importance of the context supporting the practices you want to put in place. >> thank you both very much. let's give them another big round of applause. [applause] on the next "washington journal those the national school board association looks at the rule of school boards.

"washington journal" is life at 7:00 p.m. on c-span. here's a look at some of our programming this week on the c-span networks -- a challenge to the phone surveillance program. wednesday, live coverage of the debate between north carolina democratic senator kay hagan and her republican opponent tom tillis. at 8:00, senate hearing on sexual assault on college campuses. thursday night at 8:00, the

senate agriculture committee looks into school lunch nutrition. at 10:00 m eastern, live coverage of the california governor's debate. "book tv" the 1975 book "washington journal" but the news coverage of watergate. wednesday night, author of "police state usa" about law enforcement's use of surveillance technology. on "american history tv" tonight at 8:00 a.m. eastern, historians discuss the battle of bladensburg and the war of 1812. on wednesday, live coverage beginning at 1:00 p.m. of the symposium arcing the 200th anniversary of the war. live coverage continues all day a.m. ay beginning at 8:30

let us know what you think about the programs you are watching. join the c-span conversation, like us on facebook or follow us on twitter. president obama traveled to wisconsin on labor day. he spoke at the annual labor day festival. here is a look. milwaukee!o walkie! great round of applause for that great introduction. happy labor day, everybody.

happy labor day. today is a day that belongs to you. the working men and women who make america the greatest country on earth. thank you. to the working folks are here today and the unions who have always had your back. [applause] thank you to the milwaukee area labor council, to the wisconsin afl-cio. it is good to be back at labor fest. i hope you don't mind, i brought a friend with me. someone who is fighting for american workers every day, tom perez is in the house. [applause]

i just found out tom's wife is from milwaukee. his father lies here. -- his father-in-law is here. first of all, your congresswoman is here. [applause] your mayor tom barrett is in the house. [applause] ,e have one of my favorites mary kay henry. garcia.ected lily my how, that a packers fan, a steelers fan, but he is a good guy anyway.

from ua, johansson from ufc w. all of the other labor leaders who are here, we're so glad to have you. we're here because of the things all too often we take for granted. anybody who has a seat, feel free to sit down. i don't want anyone fainting because it is so hot out here. i might get you back up on your feet at some point. here to celebrate something that sometimes the american people take for granted. the 40 hour work week. overtime pay. a minimum wage, weekends like this one. all of this didn't happen by accident. it happened because america's

workers organized for it. fought for it. history shows that working families can get a fair shot in this country, but only if we're willing to fight for it. the first time i came to labor fest, i was still a candidate act in 2008. [applause] and during that campaign, i promised if you send me to the white house, i would stand with you in that fight. [applause] two weeks later, our financial system collapsed, a recession almost became a depression. in their sins, our country has faced a choice. wantedre some folks who to place even bigger bets on top-down economics. the kind of economics that

helped cause the crisis in the first place. more tax cuts for those at the top, fewer rules for big banks and corporations. this blind faith that maybe prosperity would finally trickle down on the rest of us and folks up at the top keep on doing better and better. you know what, milwaukee? run for president for top-down economics, but i ran for president because i believed in bottom-up economics, middle out economics. i placed a bet on america's workers. [applause] i put my money on american workers and the believe that our economy grows best when everybody has a shot. when folks who are willing to work hard can get in the middle class and stay in the middle class. i've come back to labor fest to

say that because of your hard work, because of what we have been through together, that at the starting to pay off. america is stronger because of decisions we made to rescue our economy and rebuild it on a new foundation, asking the simple question, is this good for ordinary americans? is this good for working people? not just a few, but for everybody. months, ourt 53 business of creating nearly 10 million new jobs. [applause] we're at a street where in the last six months, we created more than 200,000 jobs each month. that is the first time that has happened since 1997. [applause]

construction is rebounding, energy and technology are booming. american manufacturing is steadily creating jobs for the first time since the 1990's. our businesses export more goods made right here in america than the rest of the world than ever before. [applause] america is stronger because we saved the american auto industry and more than one million jobs that depend on the auto industry. [applause] today our workers are building more cars than any time since 2002. by the way, they are really good cars. the auto industry is adding jobs at the strongest rate since the 1990's. america stronger because we invested in homegrown energy.

the world's number one oil and gas producer is not russia, it's the usa. arabia, it is we are the largest producer. and for the first time in nearly 20 years, america now produces more oil than we buy from other countries. producing more clean energy. putting folks back to work. we tripled the amount of wind power that creates energy. timese increased by 10 the amount of solar power we create. and all of that is creating tens of thousands of good jobs all across the country. we helped more middle-class families afford college.

today, thanks to outstanding teachers, our high school graduation rate is at a record high. [applause] are turningeople their college degrees than ever before. [applause] america stronger because we helped millions of responsible homeowners stay in their homes. and we got some of the biggest banks who sold deceptive mortgages to make things right, they are ponying up billions of dollars to do right by folks who got cheated. we changed the tax code that was skewed too much to the wealthy at the expense of working families. we made sure, you guys got to pay a little bit more. as a consequence, we cut our deficits by more than half. [applause] yes, no walkie, america stronger because millions more americans

have the peace of mind of quality, affordable health insurance that they can count on. [applause] so i just want everybody to understand. you would not know it from watching the news. , themost every measure american economy and american workers are better off than when i took office. [applause] we are better off by almost every measure. look, none of this progress has come easy. every inch of it with had to fight for. every inch of it we've had to work against a lockstep opposition that is opposed to

everything we do. but it was worth it. every gray hair is worth it. [applause] every gray hair is worth it. and at least i've still got some hair. [applause] i look good. thank you. thank you. whenever folks say -- whenever they see me they say, you look ok. like they are surprised. they say imetimes looked taller than i do on tv. i say, that's because the tv is small. it makes me look smaller. look, it is thanks to the

resilience of working americans that this country we love -- it has recovered faster, has come farther than a must any other advanced economy. for the first time in more than a decade, business leaders around the world when you ask them, where do you want to invest? what is the number one place to invest? they don't say china. they don't say germany, they say the united states of america. [applause] usa. >> usa! usa! usa! >> i'm saying all of this just because sometimes if you're

watching tv, it is kind of a downer. we got struggles. we got work to do. but there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about america. more folks are working. the economy is growing stronger. the engines are revving a little louder. the question now is, are we going to make the right decisions to accelerate this progress? are we going to continue to focus on working families? are we going to continue to make sure that a growing economy gives everybody rising income and wages? are we going to make sure that we're helping the middle class? and everybody who is trying to get into the middle class? it is a good thing that corporate profits are high. i want american businesses to succeed. it is a good thing the stock

market is booming. a lot of folks have 401(k) and i want them to feel good. but i also want to see the guy who is breaking his back on 28 hour shifts so is enough money -- on two eight-hour shifts so he has enough money to send his kids to college. i want to make sure he is getting a break, getting some help. i want to see that woman who has worked for 40 years be able to retire with some dignity and some respect. [applause] that is how i measure progress, not just by how will the economy is doing overall, but how it is doing for folks who are working right., doing everything they just want a fair shot and didn't have anything handed to them in their lives. they weren't born with a silver spoon in their mouths. and the reason that is who i'm thinking about is because that

is a family i grew up in. that is a family michelle's family grew up in. this country gave me a chance and give michelle a chance. i believe in the american dream because i have lived it. [applause] office toor this restore it for everybody. so matter what you look like and where you came from, no matter how you started, you can make it in america if you try. [applause] that is what is at stake right now. making sure the economy works for everybody. economy orsion of an opportunities open to everyone who is willing to work hard.

i want an economy where new long-term investments in american energy and a magnificent structure in american manufacturing and american innovation are unleashing new jobs and industries right here in wisconsin, right here in milwaukee. an economy where our workers the chance to news skills that lead to that the job. where our children graduate from school full of prepared for the global competition they're going to face. i want an economy or your hard work pays off with higher wages and higher income and fair pay for women in workplace public civility -- flexibility for parents and affordable health insurance and decent retirement benefits. i'm not asking for the moon, i just want a good deal for american workers. [applause]

you know, sometimes when i talk about this stuff to some of my folks on the other side of the aisle, they're like, what are you stirring up class resentment? i'm not stirring up class resentment. let me tell you something, working families, they are find that folks are rich. the average person is not looking for a yacht. they're not looking for their own plane. they're not looking for a mansion. they don't need to be vacationing in saint bart's. is come're looking for if they work hard, they can pay the bills. that they can send their kids to school. they can retire with some dignity. they can take a vacation once in a while, go to wisconsin.

they ain't looking for nothing fancy. [applause] that is where michelle and i used to take melia and sasha. we would be in that water so long, fingers all pruned up. there were a lot of little kids in their, which made you a little suspicious about the water. [laughter] i'm just saying. that was not in the prepared remarks. now, most of the policies i'm talking about have two things in common. they're going to help more working families get ahead and the republicans, who run our congress, oppose almost all of them.

[boos] don't boo, vote. vote.easy to i want you to vote. vote.boo, everything.almost i'm not making that up. i'm just telling the truth. in fact, they oppose stuff they used to be for. it's true. i mean, they used to be for building roads and bridges and all that stuff. now they are, no, we can't build roads. why not have them -- why not? it.use you proposed i'm just telling the truth. the sky is blue today, milwaukee barrats are delicious, the bruis

are tied for first place -- the brewers are tied for first place and republicans in congress love to say no. those are just the facts of life. they say no to everything. if we had a congress that cared about policies that actually , i promiseg people you, we could get everything done that we have talked about doing. but until we have that congress, it is up to us to fight for these policies. so wherever i can, i have acted on my own. i acted on my own to make sure more women have the protections they needed to fight for fair pay on the workplace because i think women succeed, america succeeds. [applause] mom. raised by a single so i know how hard it is for a

lot of women out there. by the way, then, you should want your wife to get paid fair. she is bringing that money home. that is not a women's issue, that is your issue. that is money out of your families get. that is why i took action on my own to give millions of americans a chance to cap their student loan payments at 10% of their income. i don't want young people settled with debt when they're just turning out in life. that is why i acted on my own to make sure companies that received federal contracts, that they pay their workers a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour if you work full-time in america, you should not be living in poverty. you should not be tried to support a family on poverty. [applause]

in the year and a half since i first asked congress to raise minimum wage, of course, the republicans in congress blocked it. but more and more americans are doing their part to make it happen. this is why i stay optimistic even with some of the nonsense that goes on in washington. you see business leaders income is like the gap that raised base many, for because they know is good for america. the american los angeles is announcing a plan to raise his cities minimum wage. [applause] here's a good story. last month, the president of kentucky state university gave himself a $90,000 pay cut so he could raise wages for his lowest paid employees. [applause]

13 states, the district of columbia, they raised minimum wages and four more states are putting more initiatives on the ballot in november. here's the best part. you will hear opponents say, well, minimum wage is going to kill jobs. except it turns out the states where the minimum wage has gone up this year had higher job growth in the states that did not raise the minimum wage. that is a fact. [applause] the country right now, there's a national movement going on made up of fast food workers organizing to lift wages. they can provide for their families with pride and dignity. there is note a nine a simple truth -- there is no denying that sybil truth, america deserves a raise. folks are doing very well on

wall street and in the board rooms. give america a raise. i think eventually congress will hear us. we will break those folks down. we will stay on them. we will keep at it. that is how i got michelle to marry me. i just wore her down. persistence. you have to stay at it. because the only thing more powerful than an idea whose time has come is when millions of americans are organized -- millions of people are whosezing around an idea time has come, voting for an idea whose time has come. [applause] whenw it gets frustrating it feels like your voices are not heard in washington. i promise you, i share that frustration. after all that unions have done

to build and protect working americans, i know it is frustrating when people have the tod of blame you -- gall blame you for the problems facing working in americans. i know you have some experience with that around here. [applause] but you know what? job were looking for a good that lets me build some security for my family, i would join a union. [applause] if i were busting my butt in this industry and wanted an honest days pay for an honest day's work, i would join a union. firefighter or a police officer risking my life and helping to keep my communities safe and wanted to make sure i came home safe to my family, i would join a union. [applause]

i would want a union looking out for me. and if i cared about these things, i would also want more democrats looking out for me. i'm just saying. [applause] because when the rest of the country is working to raise wages but republicans in congress won't, it ate right -- it ain't right. not only is it not right, it ain't right. when the rest of the country is working to open up more businesses but republicans in congress block investment that would help more businesses grow, it ain't right. and ceos, when law evangelicaland the community, when folks usually don't agree on anything agree that we should be fixing our

broken immigration system, but republicans in the house of representatives have been sitting on a bill for more than a year, it ain't right. why we have to keep fighting. at the beginning of the last century, people fought against the idea of a 40 hour work week. they fought against weekends. they fought against workplace safety laws. 80 years ago, people fought against the idea of social security. 50 years ago, people fought against the idea of medicare. guess what? we won those fights. [applause] and just like in the past, today you still have fining people fighting for healtca