a has quadrature in, couple b chooses to remain childless. while raising children, couple a will incur $1.2 million on average. couple b will not have that expense. couplea has produced four different taxpayers that will sure plans for anyone that retired that shore up if you mean this tax plan will win him the white house, i don't think anybody's going to win. it's a one-trick pony. but i doth it's a good plan and i think he's a good candidate. should he get into the presidential race i think he'll do well. >> senator, they shut off

funding. was that your experience too and if so is that something that's on going or petered out by now? senator: shut off funding i don't know. i mean, he's a more prolific fund-raiser than i am, so he may have felt more of a difference than i did. you'd have to ask him. i'm not aware of any conspiracy to shut us out of anything and i'm not aware of any one person or one group of people who has the ability to do that. >> senator paul has this legislation that lets states implement their own medical marijuana laws and make these states no longer breaking law. is that something you support on

the judiciary committee? what is your stance on that? senator: is this the one that he's running with senator and had a long conversation with senator the other day. as i recall it would move marijuana from a schedule one to a schedule two; is that right? >> right. it has some medical benefit and allows states that legalize it to regulate it. senator: one of the reasons for doing that that senator told me about is that you have some states in which there are researchers who are anxious to do research on oil as a treatment for epilepsy and other disorders and unable to do it and that's one of the reasons for doing it. i'm looking at this legislation and i haven't made a decision on

it yet. it's worth considering. >> do you think the federal government should have overarching policies? senator: i think you can state a strong argument that a state ought to be able to allow for the inextra state production and use of a particular medical treatment. that is of course not the system we have now and so it's it's tough to ignore the realities of the current system. but senators paul and jill pwrapbt have made a strong case for this modest action might be warranted. i haven't decided how i'm going to come down on it yet and i'm looking closely at it. >> senator, couple of questions. what kind of a royalty and/or

advance did you get for the book and did you have a ghost writer or did you write this yourself and? and unrelated to this your three best friends are running for president. are you trying to keep neutral on that? any advice you've given them and which one will you back? senator: good questions. i wrote it on my own time. i don't discuss the particular letters of the royalty agreement publicly although i'll be required to disclose on an annual basis any royalties i receive from year to year on that. so you'll see that when it happens. yeah i do have three friends in the senate, three of my very closest allies in the senate all appear to be running for president. and you know it's a tough thing any time you have three of your favorite co-workers who all decide to run for president at the same time, first time it's

ever happened to me. i hope to be as supportive as i can of all three of them because i genuinely like all three of them. for that reason i'm not inclined to endorse any one of them at this point because i can't endorse one of them without sort of unendorsing one of the others and at this point i don't see any reason to do that. i'll be on the ballot in exactly one state and that's your state and my state in utah. >> can i ask you just a quick follow-up. recent utah policy showed that 37% of voters wanted you as the g.o.p. nominee in 2016 while 30%

chose josh romney. do you expect a primary battle? senator: i don't know. i think that's an about a year away and i'm getting ready for anything that might come my way. preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. reporter: senator the 2016 presidential race, what are you looking for in a nominee for the party and what kind of nominee do you think the voters in the republican party, the activists around the country want to see? they've had john mc cain in 2008 and mitt romney in 2012. what are the qualities that are important now? senator: i've done several speeches on this. i'd like to see a candidate who is principaled and positive and proven. not afraid to admit why he or she is a conservative, not

afraid to demonstrate that commitment to conservative principals by embracing pro active conservative agenda to explain how it is those conservative principals can be used to promote economic mobility in america to help expand the middle class to help those who are unemployed or underemployed expand their opportunities. and somebody who has got some kind of track record somewhere proving a commitment to these things. and i think we've got a pretty strong field of candidates so far and it may well continue to grow. at this point the more the mareier mareier. reporter: does it give you any concerns that the money folks seem to be rallying so early

around jeb bush? senator: does it concern me? no. i'm not terribly surprised by that and again, we're still in the early stages of this, and so we're waiting to see who is going to take off and who isn't. reporter: without violating your reluctance to endorse anyone, give us your endorsement of the three candidates what are your strengths and weaknesses are in the race? senator: you had to go with the weaknesses part. let's start with the strengths at least. so we'll go in order of when they's announced i suppose.

ted cruz and i both come from similar professional backgrounds. we're both appellate litigateers and served as law clerks at the supreme court and approach issues, particularly constitutional issues in a similar way. ideologically i share a lot in common with ted cruz and i like his passion and i like his dedication to conservative principals and his willingness to fight even when it's hard. i have an enormous amount of respect for him. some of those same characteristics have been characterized as a weakness and achilles' heel for him.

we'll see how the primary election voters feel about that at the end of the day. rand paul and i have announced next. we have been friends. before i met him i red a-- read a column by george will. they said if he were elected they would become best friends and that turn said out to be true. i always enjoyed my association with rand from almost the very first moment we were headed to the senate floor within our first weeks in office and he asked me how i was going to vote on a particular bill and i told him i thought i was going to vote for it and he identified some concerns for it and i didn't share his concern but i was impressed that he was willing to do the work to find

it. i still vividly remember the moment he went to the floor and decided to speak for 13 hours at a time in one sitting on drone strikes and that was exciting. some would say that the achilles' heel for him would be on foreign policy. but there again others would view that as his strength. with rubio, i also met rubio pretty early on. i think i met rubio the soonest very early in 2010 when we were both running. i saw him speak and immediately impressed with his speaking ability. i'm not sure that i ever -- at least among the current field of presidential candidates. i don't know that we have any other candidate who is as good as rubio is at communicating and

delivering a speech and inviting the audience into an emotional journey as he speaks. he's one of these guys who can bring grown men to tears very quickly with emotion speaking about his great love for our country. he's got great vision and outstanding communicator. one of the best natural athletes in political terms that we've got today. there are those who are still critical of him for his involvement in the immigration bill a few years ago but on the other hand, that was a few years ago and it was just one issue. reporter: next week marks the first 100 days of the republican congress and you're one in a group that only served as a minority. i was hoping you could reflect a

little bit about what the majority has been like and how that's been different for you and maybe more broadly your take on how republicans in congress are doing so far. what have been the hits and the misses? senator: the biggest single difference by far since we took the majority in the senate has been that we're voting. we're voting a lot which is what we're supposed to be doing. i always think the more votes we can be casting the better. that's what we're here to do is to consider debate and ultimately vote on pieces of legislation, whether they pass or not we theed to be need /* -- need to be voting on them. we cast the most votes within the first -- i don't know i think it was the first 6, 7

weeks of the republican majority than we did the entire previous year. in fact, i think within the first eight weeks we may have cast more votes than we cast in the previous congress on the floor of the senate. and that's a good thing. there was a lot of frustration, not just among republicans but among democrats as well in the past two congresses over the fact that our previous majority leader had been fairly reluctant to call votes to allow votes and allow amendments on legislation when you don't have an open amendment process the legislative process itself is thwarted and can't proceed as it should. so anyway that's been a rewarding thing. then you ask for the highlights.

one highlight was passing out a budget just before we left for easter. that was a good thing. it's been about six years since congress has passed a budget and it's good to have gotten that one done and good to get the pipeline legislation done and unfortunate that the president vetoed it and unfortunate we were not able to override it. reporter: you go back one more time to your three really good friends. i was going to ask a little bit about it. i was curious when you look at their potential paths in their candidacies, what you can see for each of them if you could do -- their biggest challenge in moving forward and completely separately mention in the introduction that your family

knew senator family growing up. >> the biggest challenges that each of them is likely to face in their potential path to the nomination let's just say. with ted has a really strong loyal following. as i talked to people around the country i see a lot of people who are big cruz fans and a lot of them who are people very involved in the grassroots conservative movement. and i think that is a great strength and going along with that great strength is a potential challenge that he's got in demonstrating he can

appeal to others within the party. and also that he can have enough appeal outside the party to get him a shot at winning in a general election. the more people get to see him and interact with him, they will appreciate his passion whether they share his particular political world view or not is a different question. but i have talked to a lot of people who have said i was skeptical of him until i saw him speak in person a few times or until i watched more of his speeches rather than just watching 20 second sound bites on t.v. i know he's working very hard at that. rand going along with what i

said a minute ago, i think rand's biggest challenge will be to explain his foreign policy views. now his his father has rand has now earned the trust and support and he's built upon it from there. he had some fairly unique idiosyncratic views on certain foreign. rand paul shares those views.

even where he doesn't express them, even where he's expressed sentiments that depart market edly from his father. that's a challenge he'll have to overcome but that he's working hard to address. and also just to embrace and identify a foreign policy of his own. i thought it was interesting and unfortunate that he was hit with these attack ads the day of his announcement. and that he was attacked -- it was interesting, i launched our book on the same day that rand announced his presidency and so it ended up becoming a consistent theme in media interviews i did all day long about this. so i told rand at the end of the day i became converseant in

rand. i thought it was unfortunate and unfair he was hit by these people who were saying rand paul is to the left of barack obama on questions of foreign policy. it it didn't strike me as a fair argument or as an argument that is even all that insightful. anyway, that's something that he's wrestling with. with marco so marco hasn't announced yet it's harder to assess what his biggest pitfalls will be. but among conservatives and among the primary election voter base one of the things that i hear from people across the country is concern with his support of the gang of eight legislation. a couple years ago i was on the opposite side of that issue from

him. yet i believe that he was motivated by his den sincere desire to fit a difficult problem intractable problem related to immigration and related to the need to update and modernize our legal immigration system and figure out how to fix this big problem. and i don't think that will -- i don't think that's going to stop him. it's not to say that i don't think he's necessarily going to be our president or nominee but whether or not he wins i think will not be determined by that alone. reporter: and relations with the reed family? senator: yes, i'm sorry. i almost forgot that part. so my dad was working for the

justice department in the early 80s, and we were already here at the time that harry reid got elected to the house of representatives from nevada in 1982. shortly after the november election i don't remember whether it was december or january but the family moved to mcclain just a few blocks from where my family lived and they had a son josh who was in my class at school and in my sunday school class at church and we became fast friends. they were the first democrats i knew really well. it's not that my parents didn't allow me to interact with democrats, but we lived in utah most of my life and most of the people we knew in utah were republicans. it's not a question i typically asked of people but most of people i knew were republicans,

but i knew harry reid was a democrat. i learned early on i would get along great with the family as long as i didn't express my profound love for ronald reagan and the great things he was doing for america. when i did do that or express any of my conservative ideas to them i had to be ready to defend myself because they spared no expense at going after -- in the reid home there was open lively discussion about political issues like my own home only they came at it from a different angle on the political spectrum than we did. but i have always really liked the reid family. spent an a lot of time at their home and swam in their pool and went on trips with them as a kid

and josh spent a lot of time with me as well. harry and i always got along well. as long as we don't talk politics we gate along great. sometimes when we do talk about politics occasionally we agree on an issue. sometimes when we do, he'll say, what's wrong here? if we're agreeing us which one of us is wrong? he's a great guy and i've always enskwroeutd being around him and he's got a great sense of humor and i find him to be a very likeable human being. reporter: i think it's revealed a divide within conservative circles about the cheerleaders who say tax credits is unpaid spending. and then of course folks who are in your persuasion who see tax credits as a good public policy

goal in this particular sense. when push comes to shove on this and as republicans are debating these ideas i know sort of where you'll fall on that line. i'm wondering where you think based on your conversations with senator rubio where he falls and the party is on this question of sort of keeping tax rates low to the lowest that they can be and possibly instituting some of these pro growth family policies that might require keeping tax rates a little higher than some of those absolutists might want. senator: where rubio might fall? rubio's with me. we're both behind this plan. so, senator rubio and i both believe that we have achieved the right balance here. we've lowered rates and we've simply

identified the code. and weave done it in a way that i think protects the middle class and protects the poor and will promote growth. i think he'll be with me on this and i'm with him on that issue. as to where the rest of the party will be, i don't know. it's difficult to say. in part because we haven't had a lot of people who have weighed in on it yet. we had quite a few colleagues and looks like it's worth pursuing. i'm all too familiar with your -- with what you described with the split among policy and pundits who have watched this. i've had a couple of sessions going in the rounds and i like am mitty should lays.

she does a lot of writing on tax policy. i explained to her and others this is -- you don't necessarily have to choose not to adopt a child tax credit like this if you want to be pro growth. you can lower rates and simply identify the code and do something to help hard working american parents who are punished for being married and having children. i think this accomplishes both of those things. as far as where our colleagues in the senate will go it's too early to tell but i look forward to seeing where that goes. when we were rolling this out, rubio pulled kind of a fast one on me. we had a press conference to roll out the plan and i opened it and gave five minute spiel or

something like that and he said, i'm going to deliver my remarks in spanish and senator lee will do the same thing. and i saw this look of sheer terror from my staff in the back of the room. they knew i hadn't separately written out my remarks in spanish so i winged it and i hope i didn't accidentally declare war on canada in spanish without realizing it. but i think i did okay. rubio and i speak spanish together on the floor frequently. mostly to freak out our colleagues. reporter: you played a prominent role in impoedzse the implementation of obamacare and taking on the establishment and ultimately blamed for the government shut down along with cruz. do you feel you were unfairly portrayed in that debate? do you feel that the media did a

bad job of kind of explaining your position? do you feel it was unfair and more broadly, what's your take away from that episode. what lessons did you learn and how did you evolve? now you're at mitch mcconnell's leadership table so i think you're chairman of the republican steering committee. so there seems to be an evolution to a guy who is working with the leadership sitting down with them and insider now. you can describe that episode in your life? what you learned and how you evolved. senator: as to the first question, whether or not the portrayal of my position in connection with that sequence of events was unfair, yes, i do think it was unfair. i think my position in that

effort was a simple one. in july 2013, president obama announced that he was taking actions that were tantamount to rewriting four provisions of obamacare explaining they were not ready to be implemented as written. and he what going to implement them to rewriting the law without going through congress. my reaction to that was a simple one. it came out fairly soon after he made that announcement which was, look, if the law is not ready to implement and if he's using that as his justification for effectively rewriting these provisions of obamacare i won't vote for any spending bill that funds those programs that funds him in doing that. the solution there is to delay

this if the law is not ready. the solution is not to pretend as though the president has authority unilaterally to make the law in his own image. i announced my position on that and several of my colleagues decided they would do the same. and number of our counterparts in the house ended up doing the same. and one of the things that we ended up proposing was that look, let's have -- there with you a problem whenever congress starts to appropriate in one lump sum a year, in other words, with the regular order of budgeting process, you pass a budget and congress will pass a dozen or more spending bills funding different aspects of the government. one spending bill dealing with armed services with national defense generally and so on and so forth. when congress spends that way it

does run up against these routine cliffs where it has to make all or nothing decisions. fund everything in government or nothing. it's unfortunate. what we said in that circumstance we shouldn't be appropriating this way, but since we are since we're now here since we're then just a few weeks away from another one of these cliffs, our approach was to say, look, let's have at least two votes. let's have one vote on funding everything else in government and we'll vote in this circumstance to keep everything in government funded and open even programs that we don't like and programs that we think are not being managed propler and i programmed we would have never have wanted and let he have a different vote on underfunding on obamacare given that the fact that the president said it's not ready to be implemented as written. the house of representatives

passed a measure that would have kept everything else in government funded except obamacare which would have allowed us to have a separate debate about it. the president was unwilling to accept that and unwilling to allow to us fund anything in government unless we found everything in government including obamacare. i don't think that it's fair to put on one senator or one group of senators and congressman blame for shutting the government simply because they said i'm not going to vote for a bill that includes obamacare funding. i will vote for everything else but not that. i do think it is at least equally fair and probably much more fair to say that when a president promises to veto anything that includes less than 100% of what he wants, that that president is at fault for

shutting the government. reporter: seems like you got blamed for the shutdown. knew your sitting at the table with mcconnell at the leadership meetings. explain the process. senator: the lesson is not everyone's going to agree with me all the time. and when they don't, it sometimes hurts, but that's life. we move on and we work with colleagues and even when they don't agree with us all the time. and it is important, i think to do everything you can to persuade your colleagues to agree with you and if you're asking whether there's more i could have done to persuade more of my colleagues of my position

at the time? sure, yeah, i wondered that all the time. but that's -- we learn through experience in this job and i'm still trying to learn every day. >> we've got about three minutes left. michael from the daily caller. reporter: in your book, you -- you have a whole chapter on it and a lot of other members of congress talk about defunding certain agencies that are doing things you don't believe they have the power to do. now that there are majorities in both houses of congress, do you think that republicans will take seriously withholding funding from agencies and which agencies would you with hold funding from? senator: okay. the short answer is probably not. probably not. because we haven't. so we had -- my concern with what i perceive to be president obama's rewrite of revisions of

the affordable care act in july of 2013 my prediction there if we fund this anyway, this will not be the end of his rewriting provisions of this law or others. that turned out to be correct. he's now made modifications that some have characterized as tantamount to rewriting the law. then in november of 2014, just last year, he understood executive actions that many have characterized as tantamount to rewriting substantial portions of our immigration code. i proposed at that time that withwe withhold funding from the implementation of that particular program of that particular executive action. we did succeed in separating homeland security spending from other spending last fall.

we did not succeed in keeping the rest of homeland security but withholding from that particular program. that has set in motion something of a pattern that suggests it's unlikely we'll be able to withholding funding from other programs. i'll continue to push for it because i believe it's what we need to do. this is not a problem that will confine itself to one administration. it's not a problem that confines to democratic administrations unless congress in pursuit in defending its own institutional prerogatives in the interest of defending the constitution itself unless congress defends its own territory, this territory will continue to be lost. and we're going to continue to march in a direction that gives the president more and more power. now maybe some people are

comfortable with that. maybe some at this table are. maybe some of my colleagues in congress are. apparently some of them seem to be. but there are going to be those who are not terribly disturbed by it right now who i think will one day look back and wonder what why they weren't concerned at all at the time. there are a lot of opportunities for abuse if you allow a president -- not just any one president but presidents generally to -- by the stroke of the executive pen, make pretty significant changes to our legal system without going through congress. and if you don't then have some reaction by congress -- and i don't mean impeachment and removal. that's not going to happen it's an extraordinary remedy and it's meant to be such. but the day-to-day remedy that congress is supposed to be

utilized. the remedy described by james madison and i discuss at some length in my book is one that involves the power of the purse. if there is no consequence to this sort of thing it it will continue to happen and over time this will end up upsetting a lot of people and harming the constitutional system which has worked well but not unbreakable. >> thank you for coming, sir. i hope you'll come back. appreciate it. senator: thank you very much. >> all this week we've been showing profiles of pressureman members of congress. tonight montana republican ryan zink can i. hear some of our conversation.

republican: i can say being a congressman is more difficult than being a seal. as a seal, you can watch things get done. you can engage. you have a terrific team around you. normally you had the resources to win and you can watch progress be made. on the hill under the current polarization there is progress being made. it is mixable. it is absolutely fixable but it's not as rapid as what you would like. you got to make sure you exercise patience and some it's just political rhetoric. some people don't want the facts. they don't care about the facts. what they care about is an agenda. and i never looked through life through a red or a blue lens of the it's always been red, white and blue.

and as a former seal commander i never asked the political affiliation of the folks around me. all i cared about is how good they were. were they skilled and committed and did they have the right training and did they have the right gut and grit to do what was necessary. >> the final interview in our series of profiles of some of the new members of the 114th congress tonight at 9:00 eastern followed by a look at the legacy of former first lady laura bush with speakers including her chief of staff. we'll have that at 9:30 eastern. >> here are some of the featured programs for this weekend. on the c-span networks. on c-span two saturday at 10:00 p.m. eastern on afterwards. president of americans for tax reform grover norquist say that

they're tired of our tax system and author susan butler on president franklin roosevelt and joseph stalin. allies during world war ii and unexpected partnership beyond the war and saturday night on american history t.v. lectures on history jennifer murray on how civil war veterans reunions have changed from the reconstruction era to present. and sunday afternoon at 1:00 american history t.v. is live from courthouse national historical park commemorating the 150th anniversary of the confederate surrender and the end of the civil war. >> the investments his statement has made. he spoke at the center for american progress in washington, d.c. about how investing in early education is a cost saving measure and ensures virginia

will have the workforce of the future. a panel discussion about education. >> good morning, everyone. i am thrilled to have the governor here today who will discuss the value of states and communities taking action on early childhood education. happy to have him here at the center for american progress. he has been a leader on this issue as well as so many issues. early childhood education is a bright spot in our national policy landscape. it brings together diverse leaders at the city, state and federal level and at the state level and local level we have

bipartisan leaders who have been focusing on these issues. i believe that's really because there's been incredible data points on the return on investment we get from early learning. early childhood programs not only even the playing field as they begin kindergarten but build a workforce that can drive future economic growth and ensure american businesses remain globeally competitive. that's one reason president obama has brought together state holders and policymakers and mayors school superintendents, corporate and community leaders and advocates to discuss the importance of early education and to harness additional funds for early education. the next steps are to help implement these proposals. state and local leaders have rushed to answer the call. states like pennsylvania, georgia, and virginia and boston

and indianapolis and columbus have increased spending. we're thrilled to have leaders from those communities here today. but i'm particularly honored to introduce the governor who has focused on investments and early education. it's really from that perspective of human capital we know that virginia is growing growing very strongly. it has its lowest unemployment rate in 15 years at 4.7%. congratulations, governor. [applause] >> it's really when these leaders are focusing on the long term and ensuring that those businesses will have their human capital needs not just now but well into the future and that's where early learning and early investments make sense. you're investing a lot in k-12 and make sure to invest in the

early years as well. even start kids need. it's essential it will allow the commonwealth to sure 1,600 students kids at risk and high quality preschool classes in the first year. so we thought that it would be critical to have his voice here because he understands this not only as a governor as a former business leader but a community leader but someone who recognizes that this is not an important issue just now but well into the future. governor. [applause] governor: thank you, good morning everybody. it's an honor to be here and i

thank the center for american progress for inviting us here today. my deputy secretary of education is with me as well and we thank you for this opportunity. this is a very, very important topic to us and the commonwealth of virginia i make the argument to the entire country. early childhood investment and education i make the argument will determine what type of workforce you have for many years to come and if you're going to be competitive in a global economy you better start early. it is an investment. when i became governor i actually inherited about a $2.4 billion budget deficit. to try to convince folks to say, take money and invest here and try to close a gigantic budget deficit is challenging but we've been able to do it. this is an insrefrtment and it's an investment that will return so many times over and over. i want to thank the senator.

you're timing could not be anymore important. this is such an important issue for virginia and i would make the argument for the entire country as a whole. we made tremendous progress and we have a lot of work do going forward. when i ran for governor in virginia, one of my campaign promises was investment in pre-k and early childhood development. i thought it very important and one of the main things i ran on when i talk about workforce development. as soon as i was elected he knew i what face some headwinds. the leader of the general assembly only 32 out of 100 democrats in our house of delegates, i knew i had a challenge. in fact ahead of the house of delegates said pre-k is a waste of money. i knew i had a challenge ahead of me. for me what i had to do is incapsulate early childhood

development. virginia is unique. we have the number one recipient of department of defense dollars and number one of the whole country. largest naval base in the world and the pentagon and the cia and quantico. october 1st sequestration is a big marker for virginia. what i've been able to do is work with the general assembly to say we've got to diversify and become less reliant on the federal government and build a new economy. you cannot do that without the best educated workforce and it comes down to education and the issue becomes when do you start on education. this was important to me as we go forward to build our new economy and bring in those new

jobs. we have been very successful in virginia and very low unemployment. we've done three economic projects and direct investment into virginia. that is double any governor in history. that not that i'm counting. because of the success with job creation and economic development i was able to forge a bipartisan relationship with our general assembly who realized let's work with him so it helped us move the ball. we made pre progress in the last 14 months. i talk about the new economy. it's not only education as you know. when i became governor we had onerous legislation and we ended all that. they were going to shut down 18 women's health clinics and that's gone. i've tried to make virginia open

and welcome to everybody. i was the first candidate to come out to gay marriage. i allowed loving gay couples to aadopts and performed gay marriage and the sky didn't fall in. we're open and welcoming. make it and welcoming and investing in your education system because listen, we face challenges as i said historically in virginia on education. we have a lot of things to do in virginia 52% of our 3 and 4 year olds are not in school. among 3 and 4 year olds living in households with incomes below $20,000, 60% of the children were not in school. as i said in my state of the commonwealth address in january if we are going to lead in a global economy we cannot wait

until students reach kindergarten to begin preparing them for economic success. research tells us that 90% of a child's brain development goes on between birth and five years old. so the point i'm always trying to make let's not pick winners and losers at birth, your economic future should not be dependant upon your parents financial condition or your zip code. we should allow every child to have early childhood success. if we don't do everything possible to maximize the learning in those early years, i clearly realize that these children will not reach their full potential and it as a business person if you invest early it saves you money on the back end. it's not only investment this is a cost saving measure and gives me the tools to be successful. 73% of our four year olds in virginia today are not enrolled

in publicly financed preschool program which amounts to 66,000 children. more than a third of our young children live in economically depressed communities that need a new generation of well educated high-skilled workers. we have parts of the commonwealth south side southwest, we've seen textile and furniture and tobacco. these areas have been ravaged by many jobs going overseas and changes in economic conditions. we have to bring businesses back into these communities. you cannot do it unless you've got a highly educated workforce and that workforce i would argue in the rural communities of virginia starts at pre-k. as governor, i make the business case every single day for what we need to do to expand the pre-k initiatives. the key is the partnership we established with our business

community. i would make the argument to every elected official why we have been very successful in virginia is the virginia chamber of commerce and most chambers of commerce and community leaders have come out whole-heartedly to support the pre-k initiative. our virginia chamber of commerce i think fair to say probably not the most liberal organization ever put together came out with a blueprint virginia and said their number one goal is early childhood development and early childhood preschool involvement. have to the organization ever put together business community with us hand in hand i got it tell you has made tremendous opportunities. obviously wednesday need to go to the legislature to do the programs we have. our top corporate leaders recognize in virginia we need 2 million workers to support the state's economic growth. we're doing great in virginia and a lot of new businesses that

have come in. as i say i announced 351 new economic development projects and brought projects in from all over the globe. i was the most travelled tkpwofbers. he went to the china twice and japan and korea and europe. the largest investment into the united states we just won that in virginia. $2 billion investment and i just opened a new plant 150th an anniversary anniversary. 150 years ago they ended up the civil war but i was there exciting. we brought a company back from china. it was the largest deal done in 44 years in virginia. we brought a company back that bought an old shutter furniture facility. we turned it into a manufacturing facility and that

manufacturing facility is now making pollution control devices and taking those devices and taking them to our port and guess what? we're shipping them back to china and selling it back to china. you want to talk about a new economy. that is a new virginia economy. and the reason we're able to do it i was visiting china and we have a workforce that you'll have 5, 10, 15 years from today. it starts with early childhood education, so everybody is sort of beginning to get on the bus here and figure out what it is we need to do to compete in a global economy. every governor faces the same challenges, growing and diversifying the economy and preschool, early childhood education is not a partisan

issue at all and non partisan and bipartisan and everybody knees to work together. so, as we move forward i do want to thank the department of education. virginia was one of 18 states and we worked very hard to get the grant and very competitive and i'm so proud of our education team that put this together. thank my secretary of education who many of you was involved in early childhood development issues. as a result of this new grant that we have we'll be able to serve 13,192 low income four yields now in a high quality setting through what we're calling our virginia preschool initiative. v.p. i. we identified 11 school divisions for participation on

first and foremost concentration on poverty and the number of schools that are title one schools in the region and number three, the number of unused slots available to our existing state pre-k program. we give money out and it has to be matched at the local level. if the community doesn't use it, i just sponsored legislation we prohibit it from in other areas. if you have unused slots and other communities wants them you should be able to use them. and then finally the percentage of students who were not meeting literary bench marks. we developed a new model that builds on our v.p. i.program to go forward and the program currently serves today before this grant more than 18,004 yields who are at risk or have faced failure and don't fit into the headstart program and the key ingredients of the

v.p.i.program most importantly high quality teachers. more than anything else is the quality of that teacher at that pre-k to get that young mind in there and get them excited early on about learning and i always joke with my education folks. i want every child who comes in i want a crayola book because we've got to get those young minds early on and excited particularly about the stem courses and not only stem but all the other avenues. we have state of the art performance measures that are developed by top notch researchers at the university of virginia. we want a child to staff ratio of 9-1 and very important we concentrate on parental involvement. you cannot do this folks if you don't have the parents involved. we can do whatever we want in the school but once they go

home, if those parents aren't engaged, it really diminishes what we're trying to do and really trying to get the parents to come to school to be part of the process is so important and then obviously we've expanded it to support services, expanded support services, health care for these children. i can tell you horror stories that i've heard from teachers in certain parts of the commonwealth of virginia when some of these children come to school. the close they have, -- clothes they have, a sad sad story. health care is a big part of that. when i talk of pre-k, we are changing the whole way we look at it. a 360 degree approach. we have to start at birth. i'm so proud we just passed legislation that thousands of pregnant women in virginia now have access to dental care.

it is important that they have access to dental care during the birthing process and six months after. we, in the state, are sending about $60 million on our vpi program, and the grant that we just got the other day and enables us to send more money. if the local community can make the match, the government can be assistance. the federal grant, i can't thank them enough for giving it to us will allow us to do what we need to do. it is important that we all work together on this. as i said, we put this in concert not only with our education department, what are secretary of congress. i tie it all into workforce

development. when we are out in the community talking education, we are also talking about job growth. i always like to say dorothy and i have five children. we hope our children will stay in virginia. they will not stay unless we have those jobs for the 21st century. it is a global economy. these children will go anywhere. in order to get them to stay and grow the economy, it starts with education and our early childhood involvement. i also want to thank robert who is a world-renowned researcher who is one of the best researchers i know teaching techniques and is very involved in putting these programs together. we have a great public-private partnership together. i'm excited about the future we have in the commonwealth of virginia, but i would say to all elected officials with us today that the key to this is diversifying your economy. nothing better than success when you are bringing in jobs, and making that argument, people

understand that. you have a great ability i think, to move forward. i would just say, finally, as i speak about the 360 approach, my wife dorothy, wife of 26 years. what a statement. imagine if you are married to me for 26 years. she is a saint. her whole initiatives going -- we have 3000 children who go to school hungry. let's be crystal clear. you can't learn or expect a child to go to school who is hungry. they will not focus on learning. our goals is to end hunger for all 300,000 children that go to school hungry. we have made tremendous progress. i also want to thank the department of agriculture. we just got a tremendous grant for several of our school district to feed children three

meals per day for 355 days per year. we are one of five states who got this award. it ties to health, nutrition and early childhood learning. i wanted to come here and say thank you. we are stepping up front on childhood education. we are taking a 360 degree approach to doing what we need to do. the numbers we have, you just look at the statistics, those who have some type of pre-k education, when they going to kindergarten, as you know, 90% of those children -- actually 97% -- are excelling. only 3% are not. for those that did not have a pre-k education, the number of those not excelling goes up to about 30 percent. from 3% to 30%. those metrics speak for themselves. it's an honor to be here with you. i thank you for inviting me here

today and i look forward to taking some questions. [applause] neera: we would love to get questions from the audience. when you answer questions tell us who you are. thanks so much. thank you again for being here. i think you help does understand something that has been a little bit of a mr. to me. so many of the benefits of decay have been -- i mean, the benefits of what you are making will happen really when you're no longer governor. in a way, it is one of these issues where you are not going to see the direct benefits, or capture all the benefits of the decisions you are making now. the argument is that you can attract business. are there other ways -- basically, why do you spent all this time is the jobs created

because of human capital will help some future governor? gov. mcauliffe: it will help a future governor, by would make the argument that it helps me -- we have shared all investment records in my first four months. i have to tell you, i travel all over the globe, i love to bring new businesses. that is why ran for governor. at the and of the day, all governors consider in the office and say they want to invest in this or put money here -- none of that matters if you don't have economic activity to invest in the parties that you have. i would make the argument, as i job around, one of the things that constantly -- i'm pretty good at sales and i really enjoy it, i have fun doing this, as you can tell -- education is the key. honestly, i can't stress it to anyone else they're trying to bring business to their state. if the project we brought to

china, a $2 million investment if they did not think that 10 years or 20 years, that they would have that workforce, they would not come to virginia. my main argument that i talk about, with great universities all of that, i talk about three k. we are starting our education system early. in all fairness, would you go to asia, they are doing it. let me be clear here, we are competing. they go to slow longer and more days than we do here in the united states of america. they are keenly attuned to what we are doing on education. for all governors and elected officials, you better get in the game on this or you won't get the business. they are smart. they are determining where they will invest their capital. i can make the argument that pre-k -- starting education early is one of the best drivers we have.

can just talk about it. we have to show that i put money in and got back much more. neera: there was a study that showed exactly how much china, india are ramping up their 0-22 investments. they are in a major path, like you said, most kids are in pre-k, early learning. gov. mcauliffe: studies show it. i just cited a study. 97%. these are metrics that we have. some of the people on the other side have argued -- one study out this shows that after four years they forget everything they learned in pre-k. you go talk to multiple pre-k teachers. they will say it is night and day for kindergarten teachers they know who have had pre-k. neera: what of the great things about pre-k is it is bipartisan.

you see governors like yourself, but also the vulcan governors leading on these issues. we have had a little bit of a challenge on the federal level to create that same level of bipartisanship. is there anything that we can learn from your efforts to generate bipartisan support? gov. mcauliffe: as you mentioned -- i see we have c-span here -- i hope the department of education, some members of congress are watching. we need reauthorization of the elementary and secondary education reauthorize. like transportation funding and everything else, it is very important. i will be honest with you, as governor, it is very hard for us to plan. we cannot make long-term decisions unless we have some certainty. that's why sequestration -- we have to get our act together. we can afford the cuts to the military that we have today.

the office of transportation, how are we going to fund transportation? i have 300 50 projects that will stop immediately and virginia if they don't do the authorization for funding. they have to understand, we are competing on a global basis every day. i'm competing against 200 nations every time i get out of bed, every day. if they continue to show uncertainty and an and ability to make decisions, it affects us on the state level and clearly affects every governor and every state. i'm glad you raise that question. let's get this reauthorization done. the numbers speak for themselves. this is important for all 50 states. this is important for america to allow us to compete on a global basis. neera: i told the agree. lessons from the audience. >> dylan. virginia has excellent universities. are there ways to engage those universities more in this effort? gov. mcauliffe: great question.

we have. university of virginia is our key strategic learner. they are a part of the children's cabinet. the children's cabinet -- i actually asked my lieutenant governor who is a pediatric doctor -- university presidents are all part of that children's cabinet that we have. all of our pre-k, all of our education, i make sure we have community leaders, education leaders, but uva provides of a lot of the research data that i provided here today. you are right. we have great higher ed institutions. they want to be involved. we can do a better job when i talk about -- the key elements teachers are pre-k we could do a better job getting those institutions to train the teachers and get a pipeline of teachers as they are graduating. i will beginning several

commencement addresses this year. one of my things will be, i need you, now that you have an education, i need your help now to plant the seeds. neera: i know we are tight on time because the governor has to go see children in virginia. i want to thank you for your remarks. we will bring up our panel. i really want to thank you for being here, and more importantly for everything you're are doing for kids in virginia. thank you very much. [applause] ms. martin: i am carmel martin. executive vice president here at the center for american progress. it's my pleasure to introduce a panel to build on the conversation from the governor. we have representatives from the

federal, state, and local level to continue to talk about the challenges and opportunities related to early childhood education. i will briefly introduce the catalyst to you and then we will move forward -- panelists to you and then we will move forward with the conversation. first, in the middle, we have john king, senior adviser of the office of the deputy secretary at the department of education. he has served at the state level in york. during his tenure as commissioner, new york was national leader in many facets of education including increasing educational opportunity for students and heidi's communities. john has been a high proponent of increasing levels of education, and cofounder of roxbury preparatory schools.

he has been closing the achievement gap and encouraging students to graduate from college. to john's right, we have mayor andy berke who joins us from china, tennessee. mayor berke secured a grant from the department of health and human services. the largest grant awarded to chattanooga, allowing young children to start in education for to others. he started in the state senate where he was vice-chairman for the democratic caucus. he was also a leader on "first to the top," at the u.s. department of education and

transformed the state system of education. last but not least, we have virginia's deputy secretary of education, jennie oholleran. jennie previously served at the george washington university where she worked with government and community leaders to promote gwu's campus and aspirin. i think i panelist for joining us today. i will dive right in. i will start us off -- start, john, with you. if you could talk a little bit more. we are lucky enough to have two recipients of the department of education grant funding. maybe you can give us -- and we will talk to each panelist about the plans they have to use the funding, but you could give

us a broad national landscape of the grantees that you will be working with and then we can move to more specifics for chattanooga and virginia. mr. king: sure. thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the conversation. president obama has a had a priority of expanding education. we have tried over the last six years to not only expand access to quality. pre-preschool grants are one aspect of that strategy. we are investing $150 million in 18 states to expand -- we have 300 60,000 more students being served because of the preschool development grants. we had quite as many applicants. a secretary talked about getting calls from governors some republican some democratic

expressing their disappointment that they did not get access to those resources. we see the pre-k developments as a down payment to what will be universal access to pre-k. the president proposed adding an additional $500 million to the grant. we hope to grow the number of states that are participating. what you see states doing with these dollars is not only opening new seats but improving teacher quality, connecting preschool with support for families including health care and community-based organizations helping parents better support their children. we really are -- we hope galvanizing and effort. what you have seen over the last few months, like the state of the state address, you see governors all over the country like governor mcauliffe prioritizing investments in early learning. ms. martin: can you tell is a

little bit about the impact of having additional funds in the area of early childhood education? mayor berke: we really got that largest grant in the state of tennessee. i want to say to john how great he looks today. 1000 of our students are ready for school, we know that. as mayor of a city that does not have the school system like many mayors have, we have a county system, we look at the areas where we can make an impact. for me, it is the 0-5. if you look at the statistics at kids to enter kindergarten and are ready to learn, many do not catch up. many who make progress from year-to-year, they reversed back during the summer, and it is hard to catch back up. for us, we focus on the 0-5

space and the summer space. if you think of those thousand kids who are not ready for school -- i will also say as governor mcauliffe says, you can hear it in the teachers. to say, i was at one of the schools that is lowest performing in our county. the principal told me that many of her kids come to kindergarten with 400 words in the vocabulary . typical american student comes with 4000. for her, she spends a lot of the first years with kindergarten teachers trying to figure out how we close that gap of 400 words and 4000. ms. martin: jenny, can you tell us a little bit more? it was great to hear from the mayor about plans for virginia, can you go in more deeply? ms. oholleran: we are very

excited about the opportunity to participate. you can hear the governor's excitement and it goes down from there. we are thrilled. three things we are looking forward to doing with our grant is first and foremost serving more kids in higher quality settings. you heard the governor say, over the course of the term of the grant, we will serve 3000 kids in higher quality settings. the second is research and evaluation. we will use the data that we collect from the grant to better inform our system. we will be able to track the kids and see how our investments have paid off over the course of time. third, that will inform our third important goal which is looking at state policy and how can we take the lessons that we have learned from this grant and make policy decisions at the state level to invest more and more effectively. ms. martin: it seems like in all three contexts -- state,

federal, local -- with respect to tattered education is ensuring that across sectors ensuring -- would you like to speak to your efforts of integrating better education for an overarching goal of readiness? ms. oholleran: for us in virginia, it is very important for us that we create this network and work with our private providers. we see early childhood education as a public-private initiative and the state and local initiative. virginia is unique in that we have a one term governor. we have for years to accomplish a whole lot. we need to be sure that we have partners in the private and public sector who are on board

with this early childhood initiative so that we can sustain it beyond our time. one of the things i did not mention that we will be doing with our grant is working to increase quality and some of our nonpublic partners to create classrooms in nonprofit settings or private settings. for us, the network is really critical in increasing quality across sectors. mayor berke: one of the biggest powers i have as married is the power to convene people. we try to gather in all kinds of areas, not just education, but all of our service revisions. more and more, our goal is to get people in the same room and make sure we are sharing ideas and best practices. we are certainly doing that in education area, especially the baby university, which i'm happy to talk about later. for me, it is leading by example

and being sure that we are doing what we need to do. chattanooga had a high-quality head start program. we also knew that we need to look at that and see whether it was of the highest quality we could provide. sometimes high-quality means not just instruction, but also that you obey regulations. like most things that come from federal government, there are a lot of regulations that come with headstart. we actually went over the head of -- the head went over to pay attention to what is going on in the headstart program. when what he found is unfortunately, because of being involved with young kids these kids had to wash their hands all the time. you have to watch before you paint, after you paint, before you snack, after you snack. they were leaving the classrooms all the time -- teachers were

with the kids. he came to me and said, for $80,000, we can blessing and every classroom and at probably about 1.5 hours of instruction time. you would not have done that from the evaluations. we do all the things that we have to do, but these commonsense ways of saying, how do we add instruction time to teachers -- who are doing it and a great job in the classroom , but figure out how do we comply with what the federal government wants, bad education time is important. mr. king: one of the things i think the administration has tried to do is invested qualities of education. you have 20 states working around quality improvement. part of that is doing programs and doing feedback on instructional programs, the quality of the socioemotional environment. part of that is investing in data

system so we have information about who is being served and who isn't. that can inform what are k-12 system provides to families. also, this work of teacher development, and making sure that teachers have good training, literacy development are able to teach students how to share well, express themselves. those kinds of supports are also investment. ms. martin: do you want to tell us more about baby university? a very exciting initiative for the very youngest of our nation's children. mayor berke: as governor mcauliffe said, i think it is hard to think of childhood development without thinking of strengthening families. we know that childhood education has to be good, but that families are in power to make

the best decisions possible. as we strengthen families and give them better support and what they do, that provides immediate dividends today in our workforce and in our communities. what we decided to do is bring social service providers together partner with them on what we are calling "baby university." that is about giving parents the best information that we can. the great example that comes to mind is -- we were try to figure out what to do in this area, and we had a roundtable discussion with expectant mothers. this one woman who was probably about eight months pregnant told me that she had a four-year-old son. the four-year-old son was hard to control, disobeyed her a lot and now she had another child on the way. she also told me that she had been physically abused by her father as she was growing up. she really didn't know how to

discipline her son without doing to him what her father had done to her. she wanted to know, what do i do ? we want to provide people with that kind of education so they can make good decisions and strengthen our families from day one of birth. ms. martin: we have these beautiful posters here on "invest in us," which is an initiative from the obama administration. can you tell us a little bit in that? i think it goes to jennie's point on public-private partnerships. mr. king: the idea is to bring together elected officials philanthropic organizations, and others. the partnership between obama administration, the first five years fund.

what we have been able to do is galvanized a large number of philanthropic contributions. over the summer, we were able to raise over $300 million in a variety of areas -- from the buffet organization expanding education and in omaha to an organization investing in no signs research, the joy foundation in teacher development initiatives and how we better support our educators and they are also working to organize communities so that they can think creatively of investing their resources in early learning. ms. martin: one of the things the governor mention is the need to ensure that as you expand early education programs, they have in place high-quality teachers -- in the expansion

phase, that can be difficult you need to catch up -- where are things you are thinking about in that space? it sounds like you're partnering with some folks. how can we talk about in a transition phase? ms. oholleran: the first part of the answer is that we will scale up. we will not serve all of the extra kids in the first year. our of the reason why is because we need to know that high quality teacher workforce. the second part of the answer is as you said, partnering with the private sector as well as our institutions of higher education. we are so blessed to have so many wonderful researchers in virginia helping us with this initiative and so many others. we will be looking to the university of virginia to help us lead the way on this initiative. i think -- the other piece of it is the governmor will be

making some editions this coming spring to inform the success in earlyms. martin: the governor also mentioned the desire to move forward the education act, which has strong support. one of the big priorities is that we move forward with that legislation. we think about how we can improve the federal programs that impact k-12 education, but also that commerce recognizes, what the government mayors, the nexus between childhood education and elementary and secondary education. we are hopeful congress will include in the reauthorization a larger federal commitment to some of the programs we have been talking about exist in

appropriations land, but not in authoring land, which might interest people out in the real world, and it makes a difference in washington. i wonder if any of you would like to speak to that to the importance of additional federal action in the context of elementary and secondary education act of further support early childhood programs. mr. king: you mentioned the secondary education act which will now discuss in, it was adopted in 1965. secondary token spoke about that yesterday -- secretary dunkin spoke about that yesterday. to think about the element and secondary education act of the several rights law, the voting rights act of 1965 elementary, secondary education act is part of the effort to expand quality of opportunity. one of the most important ways

we can expand opportunity today is by investing in early learning. we put out a -- early this week that said 40% of students are enrolled in the major public early learning programs, like preschool to limit grants programs or head start. we got a lot of students who need the opportunity to get high-quality early learning, so that they arrived at kindergarten ready, so students get to school with social skills they need to learn effectively in the school environment. we have an opportunity in the read the authorization discussion to express the real national commitment to early learning that school does not begin -- learning does not beginning kindergarten. preschool has to be what we think about. we're hopeful. senator alexander and senator murray are discussing this.

senator murray has been a longtime champion of early learning. we hope to see some movement on this issue. ms. martin: you had mentioned that there was not a -- between the county running the school system and the city level. do you feel -- how big of an obstacle is that given that we really do need to make sure that the programs are lined with what is happening in the school system and they need to be reinforcing each other? mayor berke: as we look in the city and had the county school system that has a county school board, a city that controls early learning and a number of other initiatives. that segmentation does not give a realistic picture of a child's needs, which should be our first priority. one of the things i did when i got into office was try to realign city government so that

it paid more attention to children. because we do not have schools before, we stayed out of the education space. i took all of our recreation centers, and i love shooting a basketball as much as anybody, but i renamed every one of them a youth and family development center, renamed r parks and rec departments using family development, because i wanted people to the it is about the developed a families of young people, not about recreation. then we started making sure that a reading initiative, mostly computer-based, was available in each one of those centers, and now we have gone from zero in two years to about 3400 kids reading at least 26 minutes every week in those centers. even though we have this segmentation, what we are trying to do is at least the pipeline that keeps going that gets kids

where they need to go because even if we all have diverse responsibilities, at some point we cannot argue about who has control where. we have to all pitch in. ms. martin: jenny at the state level, he said in the department of education are leading the efforts maryland -- efforts around early childhood. how have you tackled the issue that there is a holistic approach, and that the early childhood programs are aligned? ms. o'halleran: it is important for us well. you heard the talk about thick cabinet -- the cabinet. the secretaryies who deal with issues, talk about all sorts of topics, workforce the moment, -- development, and one piece of that is childhood developing. we have five priorities.

that was important us because the biggest initiative are working on our schools with challenging environments. we see them most important answer to the question of how can we help support the schools in our most impoverished areas as early childhood education. we see the convening role, pulling people together, at the state level, hoping to set the example for colleagues at the local novel like the mayor seems to have done in his community, to do that as well. ms. martin: i want to give the audience a chance to ask some questions. if you have a question, raise her hand and billy will bring you a microphone. these identify who you are before you ask the question. >> i am with "national review."

mike question is directed at -- my question is directed at mayor berke. there's an evaluation of the preschool program that are discouraging. the effects fade out at the end of the kindergarten year. what effect does that have a rethinking? mayor berke: there is a study when i was no legislature, something we talked about a lot that was so in progress that had some amount of fadeout after four or five years. i think there is a couple of things. number one is we still have to strengthen what happens after they leave early learning so that even if they are getting great effects as they enter kindergarten, we want to make sure you sustain that, and some of that has to do what happens with them between k and 5. the second part is there is an important social element of early learning and of being in head start and places like that that certainly they are -- there

are a lot of effects that we see and are important. third part is that there are a lot of studies all over the country that do not say the same thing as the vanderbilt study does, and we need to recognize and in fact most of the study say something else. as far as i'm concerned, if we can help kids for four years or five years, that is money well spent. >> hi, i am from -- and i just wanted as let something you did not mention. what year level -- what your government is doing about providing early childhood education to special needs children the heart of hearing, the blind, and other disabilities? thank you. mayor berke: one of the things

that we focus on the preschool deponent grants was trying to increase in passivity and early learning programs. one of the things we are supporting is trying to create opportunities force tunes with disabilities to be fully integrated. one of the challenges is in some places the only students who are running publicly funded early learning our students with disabilities and as a result they are segregated from the general education population. as we move towards universality, we have the opportunity to create the environments we want for students with the lipid studies and our general education students. ms. o'halleran: we are trying to do that in virginia as well. using our grants, but also our existing state programs. we have a great example in arlington right next door where they do a wonderful job of -- their funding streams so preschool kids, kids with

special education funding are all on the same classroom, and it was exhibited a couple months ago and we hope to do more. mayor berke: our lead partner in the baby university is a nonprofit called signal centers. what they have come to the space doing is education for children with disabilities. now they are trying to get more into helping parents and strengthen families. we are investing heavily with partners who have special ideas and expertise in this area. >> good morning. from centered for inspired teaching. i heard the governor talking about economic investment. can you talk about the benefits of the whole child in early charter education, and other benefits going forward, social emotional?

mr. king: those of us who have worked in elementary schools no that you can see a achievement gaps on the first day. you can see kids who hold the book upside down because their level of familiarity with letters is so low. you can see student who are not able to play productively in a group because they have not had those kind of experiences in learning how to collaborate. you can see that impact for students from the very first day of kindergarten, other or not they have had those high-polity early learning opportunities. we know that students who have had high-quality early learning opportunities are less likely to have her medial work or in the middle and high school level. they are more likely to graduate from high school, more likely to be successful in life. there are studies that just a 9 to 1 return on investment

because they are less likely to rely on social services and are less likely to end up in prison. this points to the long-term success and families' long-term success. one of the greatest sources of anxiety, people who are struggling, is worrying if there kids are in a high-quality early learning quality program. to ensure that parents can go to work and do what they need to do with confidence, it is not just told child, but whole finally -- family who benefits from quality early learning. >> national center for learning disabilities. you spoke about inclusion for students with disabilities. can you speak a little bit about screening for students that might not have a parent -- a learning disability and how can you distinction between the

effects of poverty and what is a neurological cause? ms. o'halleran: one of the things we are doing with our federal preschool devote grant is system rising formative and some assessments for the kids in this program. our teachers will be able to go in and take a look and see how these kids are performing on a whole host of issues, social, emotional, literacy skills, and what we are hoping to learn from some of the things you just talked about what are factors of poverty, true learning disabilities, and then how are those students improving over the year and as they enter kindergarten. ms. martin: other questions for the panel? >> hi, i am coming from the university of oklahoma.

thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience with us on this topic. governor mcauliffe talked a lot about -- and the national conversation is folks around that -- early childhood education being a point for preparing you for the future in an increasingly globalized world and globalized economy. could you guys perhaps elaborate on what intersections between programs like dual language immersion schools and early childhood education are taking place? mr. king: there is research evidence. one of the best ways to ensure their cognitive element as well as their appreciation for their holding which and culture is to have high quality dual language

programs that leverage that. one of the things that many states are doing with their challenge dollars or grants is trying to support teachers and how they leverage their native language skills for the acquisition of english. what we know is due to our english language learners, if they become proficient, they often perform at the same level or better than students who have english spoken at home from the beginning. we have got a real opportunity investing early. the other opportunity we have is to connect learning expresses services for their parents. some of our strongest programs are providing english language acquisition courses for parents. they're providing opportunities for parents to gain job skills to get access to opportunity for some of our recently arrived families. there is a huge opportunity to

make progress with a population of students which unfortunately many states are lagging behind. ms. martin: time for one more question. any other questions? maybe i will ask the last question, which is just to ask each of you to speak a little bit to the question that was asked the governor in terms of the politics around the issue. it seems like it is in the area, on the state and local level where you see bipartisanship and business interests supporting it. what you think are the most critical factors to having that bubble up and support increased investments? i think the government made -- the governor made a good argument at the macro level from an economic standpoint. mayor, you made a good point and john is welcome about the economics of the individual family. 65% of parents in virginia are working, so making sure their

children are in high quality programs is about families' economics. can you speak to the issue about how we can continue to build politically for investments in this space? mr. king: there is politics and investments. i had not noted that. as is something actually which i think that there is bipartisan consensus about largely because there's public consensus about. most parents most families want to see high-quality early learning for their kids. the matter where you go, what neighborhood you are in, people expect that as a fundamental part of education that is going to start early. even for families who do not necessarily know how to get it or how to access the high quality early learning, they still want it they still know that their child needs an education to compete in the 21st

century, and also for it to be fulfilled as a citizen in the 21st century. so to me, i think that that the politics of this are great for early learning advocates because people across chattanooga across tennessee and i am sure across the country all understand the importance of what we are doing, and that reverberates with politicians across the spectrum. it also does not hurt that if you go visit and early learning center and you sit there and watch what is going on and see kids' faces light up, sit up there and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in them, your day gets a lot better because you can see what is really happening. in the long run, i think, going back to the argument about the reauthorization, we have a situation in a city like chattanooga, metropolitan of

roughly 500,000 people, the city is 172,000, there are a thousand kids every year who are not ready for school at kindergarten. that just seems like a number that we can work with. that seems like a place that we can make an impact. and so i appreciate cap putting the day aside for this because this is a problem that if we think about it in those kinds of numbers, we can actually make an impact. ms. o'halleran: i would say i am very encouraged by what is happening in virginia. the governor talked about it as our business community which is 100% on board with early childhood education, which helps efforts not only in a bipartisan, but in a nonpartisan way in the commonwealth. we had an experience this year in the session where it looks like we may be moving backwards in our preschool eligibility in virginia. we heard such an outcry from actually southwest virginia

which is not your typical liberal community that advocates for liberal programs. we heard from teachers parents community leaders, and republican legislators in those communities who are so worried that we are going to be cutting back on eligibility on public preschool programs that we were able to strike a deal with the republican leadership in the house and senate to move forward using previous eligibility criteria. i'm hopeful moving forward in the next biennial budget, be the first and only biennial budget that governor mcauliffe will be having control over, that we will be able to invest further in early childhood. mr. king: i am optimistic about bipartisan potential in washington. we have great leaders like senators murray and scott, also like congressman hannah in new

york, who is one of the leaders in an effort. i am optimistic about that. i think the challenge for us and the thing we got to do well is deliver results. the key thing that will help us maintain and build momentum is we got to make sure the programs are very high quality and that the outcomes are very strong. that is why begun to think not just in terms of expanding access, but continue to work to improve quality. ms. martin: i am optimistic as well and look forward how did see things aggressive in virginia and chattanooga. they give for coming and doing for this dish -- and doing this for us today. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute,

which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> this week we have been showing profiles of freshmen members of congress, and tonight montana pumpkin ryan -- montana republican ryan zinke. he is the final one in our series. you can watch this interview tonight at 9:00, followed by the literacy of former first lady laura bush. here is a look. >> they are partners and everything, and she is an anchor. she is hugely supportive of everything that she does. in fact, i will say one comment here about going to afghanistan. you heard about the trip, 10 years this month.

when laura bush interviewed me and she said i want to go to afghanistan, that was the first thing she said, and my first question was, does the president know? and she said yes, because i knew what that meant. if he knew, that is all the support in the world that we needed. he supported her to go, he sent her all over the world as an advocate or as a representative, the closest personal envoy you could send. she was so effective. they were partners in everything, personal lives obviously, and devoted to their family, but also in this important work of the country and she was there in every single part of it. >> a conversation about the legacy of former first lady laura bush at 9:30. and a pair of our index interviews, the president and ceo of the aspen institute walter isaacson and ronald

kessler, all starting tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern. in history tonight on c-span3 making a few stops on the cities tour. starting at 8:00 tonight on american history tv on c-span3. and his story in the hill, and member of the secret service was arrested today by a d.c. policeman and will likely face charges of deception of property. the officer has not been identified, but agency says it was an off duty uniformed division officer assigned to the foreign mission branch, which is responsive offer security at the white house,the vice president's reisidence. the incident comes as the secret service works to fix its repetition after a string of high-profile cases that questions agents' professionalism.

you can hear more -- you can read more at hill.com. >> first ladies is now i book, published by public affairs looking inside the personal life of every first lady in american history, based on original interviews with more than 50 preeminent historians. learn details of more than 45 first ladies, their lives partnerships with her presidential spouses. the book "first ladoiies" provides lively stories of these fascinating women survived the scrutiny of the white house sometimes at great personal cost will supporting their families and famous husbands, and even changed history. c-span's "first ladies" is an inspiring read and is available as a hardcover or e-book. >> a group of native americans

held a recent discussion about stereotyping and culture, with speakers including a former nfl player. we will again with the director of the smithsonian's national museum of the american indian and an overview of native american stereotypes in history. he spoke at the heard museum of american indian arts and history. this is just over two hours. >> thank you very much, and thank you him for hosting us to create it is good be back in the valley. i was expecting different weather than we got, but we know that rain is always a blessing in the desert. so we can be happy about that. it is very good to be here at the heard museum. heard is one of our important

partners nationally and works with our museum to help us sharpen some ideas and share information and objects, quite often. so it is always good to be here. for those of you who have not seen it, i hope you will check out the exhibition on native americans in sports. i think you will be surprised by some of the things you see there. one of the things that many people are surprised by are the range of things that native americans have different -- different native americans have achieved excellence in. we know jim thorpe, but there are many native athletes of whom you should be aware, one of whom who we will be hearing from in a short time. that's me jump right in to it. i will have to turn my side to you from time to time so i can see which slide we are on.

as you heard, i am at the national museum of the american indian. one of the things that interests us gracefully -- greatly is the persistence of stereotypes. we find that our visitors come with a preconceived set of ideas, come not uninformed, but misinformed for the most part. and as you can see this took place they can innovation of the first native american saint -- canonization of the first native american saint. there is a man celebrating as they understand native american culture. this is one of those examples where we can hardly hold her at fault. she does not own any better because this is after all what she has been taught. this whole notion of cultural appropriation and taking from native people their authority to define who they are emerged at

the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. this is part of the imagery that really laid the groundwork for what would later become this is miss of using indians -- this business of using indians as mascots. this is the end of the trail image, a very famous one, and indicates the feet, but it also indicates the disappearance of native americans that native americans were disappearing and a very objective of government policy at this time was the disappearance of native american tribes. it was fine if a few people were still on the population, but what they did not want was for people to act like indians and to be part of indian tribes. and that is when mascots business began. this mascot was adopted in the 1930's by particularly vicious

racist owner of a team that at that time was in boston. the team was initially called boston braves, the same as one of the baseball teams in boston, but later in order to distinguish his team from the baseball the owner chose this particular name. there's a lot of mythology around the name. they each have an origin myth for their mascot. they are very elaborate and fantastically untrue. a fellow who went by the name of deets, there were a couple of problems. first, the owner himself not time is quoted in the newspapers saying that is not why we named it that. it is kind of a name like red sox.