e no milwaukee i don't know of any journalistic reports, no reliable broad studies. it is a little early for some of those empirical questions to be answered. >> daniel is going to be doing a signing over here afterwards. i want to thank both of you, i have learned a lot. [applause]

>> on the next washington journal, a look at states tightening rules for food stamps. then, a convention of states

cofounder, on grassroots efforts to amend the constitution via article five. and advice for people filing federal taxes ahead of wednesday's deadline. we will look for your call and take commons on facebook, starting live at 7 a.m. eastern on c-span. on newsmakers this weekend american medical association president dr. wah. he talks about the so-called doc fix, the senate will take it up next week. he also discusses the affordable health care act in its second year. newsmakers, sunday at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. eastern. on c-span. >> here are some of our featured programs this weekend. on c-span2's book weekend

grover norquist says that americans are tired of the irs and the tax system. sunday night at 8:00, author susan butler on president franklin roosevelt and joseph stalin -- allies during world war ii and their partnership beyond. saturday night on c-span3, home lectures in history. the university of virginia professor dr. murray on how things of change from reconstruction. sunday afternoon at 1:00, american history tv is live from appomattox. commemorating the 150th anniversary of the confederate surrender, and the end of the civil war. >> coming up next, an event from iowa this evening. with former virginia senator jim webb and former maryland

governor martin o'malley. and then terry mcauliffe. and the christian science monitor breakfast. the polk county democratic party hosted its fundraiser friday. the event included jim webb and martin o'malley, they spoke for about 20 minutes. [applause] >> thank you very much. jim webb: it is a pleasure to be able to spend a few minutes with you tonight. i want to thank the polk county democrats. i would like to express my appreciation to the uaw for

hosting's event. it can safely be said that i was the only person elected to statewide office with a purple heart and three tattoos. i was the only one in the statewide campaign i was very proud of support we have. [applause] also like i said, these videos were so extraordinarily well done, and the one that really got to me was the one about the veterans. i do not think anyone who has had to watch friends be shipped away like that will ever forget it. i come from a family with a long military tradition. my dad was a world war ii bomber palette.

pilot. my brother was a marine, my son was a marine. i would like to take this opportunity to ask those who are veterans to stand up and be honored tonight. [applause] we are happy to be here. in iowa, we got here yesterday. my bags got here today. [laughter] and i have to admit, last night i am strong my face. i'm not apologetic for that. i committed the sin of in the. i was sitting in a hotel from chicago, i got to omaha and my

back wasn't in omaha. i was trying to explain to the people in des moines i had to get my back. i called my wife. i started talking to her about this. i said, look, i get here i don't know where my bag is. i looked over and i see donald trump's aircraft on the runway. what i do in my life that i'm stuck with american airlines and he has a plane coming in here. she said get over it. you were in such a hurry to get out of your you did not kiss me goodbye. this is god's way of giving you a big kick in the seat. [laughter] i had a great moment over in council bluffs yesterday. i spent my high school years in omaha. i boxed golden gloves over there. it was probably the most underestimated fighter in history, harley cooper.

he was my coach senior year. more than that, he was a national golden glove champion that year. he had knockouts all the way to the finals. he made the olympic team the next year. and he was an incredible mentor to me. when i was 16 years old, moving around the military, i had gone to nine schools in five years. i need a stability. i had to work all through high school. that is why started boxing, i could do it after work. by senior year, i got an academic scholarship. i went to the university of southern california before the naval academy. all of these people that got these letters, i want to go out for track. iran 880, i came in second. i went by to see harley, who in one the golden glove. i said i got this rotc scholarship. i ran this recent came in

second. he looked at me and said are you bragging? i said yeah, i'm proud of myself. those people are good athletes, i came in second. he said don't ever come and talk to me to come in second. i said, come on harley -- that everybody can be a golden glove championship. he asked who ran the first four-minute mile? i said roger bannister. he then asked who came in second? i've never forgotten that. [laughter] he is 81 years old, on the way to the gym. we are happy to be here in iowa. we are going to be back in iowa i'm committing to you right now. we are going to go over the whole state. we have a few people working here full-time. where are you? in the back -- you will be seeing more of us. i would like to take a few minutes tonight and talk to you about three things. that i care deeply about.

first, what really are the challenges facing us as a nation? not in great detail, we don't have time. what do i see as the need to focus in the next several years. the first is restoring fairness, economic fairness. social justice into our system. i was talking about this when i ran for senate, it was a principal issue i was talking about. we have had an economic recovery since the great recession that has only helped a partial element of our society. we have to be honest about that. particularly democrats. if you go to april 2009, when recession came down -- if you have capital assets, you are doing well. the market bottomed out, a little over 6000. as recently as a couple of weeks ago it was up to 18,000. we have seen a triple since

april of 2009. working people's wages have gone down. assets, there was a piece today in the national media, about working people's asset going down. we have to put our efforts in fixing this. we have to reshape our national security policy. i am proud that i was able to serve. as a marine during a very tough time in our history. i was also able to spend five years in the pentagon, four is a defense executive. i sat on the foreign relations committee in the senate. i am privileged to have been a journalist. i was in beirut in 1983 covering it for pbs. i wasn't embedded journalist in afghanistan. i can tell you that we need to have a new doctrine that

articulates for us the national security policy of the united states. and from that doctrine, we can reshape the military. we need a strategy. the third area is basic governance. we need to be working toward a governing style that will allow the congress and the presidency to work together. and also people of different parties. what should you be looking for? in terms of leadership. first of all, when i go around the country, and i talked to people -- i hear over and over again, we need leaders we can trust. we need leaders that will tell us what their beliefs are. how they want to fix them. there is a consistency in that. it is this kind of leadership that requires the leadership of

risk. to take the hits. to stand up for what you believe, not from a poll, which helps you shape an issue politically -- working to the magic number. but what you need to do is put out these issues in a way that is not simply smart or safe, but from your heart. i have to say that the one comment that i have been proudest of in the leadership positions i've have, people have told me. i don't agree with you all the time, but i know what you say is what you mean. that is not always easy to do. when i look at the issue of the iraq war, it was not easy. to stayay early this was going to be in error. i wrote the first piece in the

"washington post," this is going to be a strategic blunder if we go in. it is going to empower iran. we are going to have a breakdown in sexual violence. there are ways to address our security without occupying that world. you don't take a hornet's nest out by sitting on it. it was an easy thing to do to take on criminal justice reform. when i started talking about our system, when i was running for the senate, i had advisers telling me that i was committing suicide. but it is so clear. in our system is broken. to how long we sentenced them to the reentry process. we started talking about it, i held to have years of hearings

on in the senate. we introduced legislation for a national commission. we brought it into the national debate. the great irony to me is that this is an issue the democratic party should own. criminal justice reform, social justice, you know who is making the most mileage? rand paul. rand paul. and when you look at the american conservative political action conference, it was their number three issue for the republican party to focus on. we need to get that issue back -- comprehensive issue of criminal justice reform. not simply one little piece or another. it was not an easy lift on the g.i. bill. when i introduced the bill my first day office, i had written it with the council. in the comment that i was making before i ran, give them the same educational opportunity

that the greatest generation had. pay their tuition, by their books, give them a stipend. i had democrats coming to me saying i was frustrating them. you have been here two weeks. this was a conference a piece of legislation. we worked hard and listen to people. get support from veterans groups and we developed a bipartisan consensus -- to republicans, to democrats, and 60 months we were able to pass the legislation. more than a million post 9-11 veterans have an able to take part in our g.i. bill. [applause] how can we make america a better place? let us look to the future here.

want to say something that trouble me a lot. i think there are a lot of people in the room who will agree. money is ruining our political process. [applause] particularly since the citizens united case of 2012. i hear jeb bush saying that he raised a hundred million dollars in three months. there are the super pacs, he is not alone here, this cannot continue. the only way we're going to do anything about it is to make sure that our people by the numbers can outnumber the others. we had 14,000 volunteers who helped us when we ran against an incumbent senator who just gotten the highest number of votes. we need to remember that the

american dream is a unique thing in this world. when people say you shouldn't talk about american exceptionalism, excuse me, i think the american dream is unique. that is why people are trying to come here. i have lived the american dream. i was able to get scholarships to go to school, able to serve my country, i have had a great experience in my life. i will tell you who has lived the american dream, my wife. my wife was born in vietnam. her family escaped vietnam when the communists took over. here's something you need to remember. on april 30, it will be the anniversary of the fall of saigon. for those of you who remember, 100 thousands were jumping out of the seats rather than face what was happening.

erik'sher entire family went out to see. they did not know if they were going to die. the united states navy scooped them out of the sea. they brought him to a refugee camp in want area from there she went to arkansas. her family settled in new orleans. her family never mastered image language. she was 11, and scholarship to michigan, ended up at cornell law. that is the american dream. [applause] we're going to preserve this, and it is illegal good to come from the democratic party. we are never going to find an

answer from the republican party on issues like american fairness -- giving people who have no voice. this is the party of franklin roosevelt and harry truman. we should say, we should agree that we are not going to be marginalized. by special interests. we are not going to be silenced in the face of overwhelming pressures that this kind of money can buy. we will not acquiesce to a future that marginalizes this american dream. we will not allow them to ignore us after the election is over. everyone this room, i think shares these feelings. or you wouldn't be committing yourself to the kind of service that you are giving right now. if enough of you believe that we can restore and preserve the american dream, for everyone,

then we will not become what some people are calling the moderate wing of the republican party. we will return to the party of roosevelt, truman -- the party that looks after everyone. [applause] and harley google will be proud of me, we are never going to come in second. we have the strongest economic power in the world we guarantee stability in the world and that is going to continue. thank you very much. [applause]

>> let me tell you a little bit about governor martin o'malley of maryland. governor o'malley comes from a long family of democrats, as well. his father was a national leader in the democratic party. he is no stranger to iowa, he came here in 1983 for the heart campaign. he had a chance to work on that campaign in which he finished second. he graduated from law school and settled in baltimore. he ran for the city council and collected. the mayor or spot became open and it was crowded. he died into that as well, getting elected mayor. when he took over baltimore, it was suffering high crime rates and a struggling economy. as a result of the policies he was anble to turn it

around. as a result of his work is mayor, he was elected governor in 2006. he took on a republican incumbent and beat him. he was rewarded with a bad economy in 2007 and 2008 that he had to deal with. he enacted some innovative policies and he was reelected in 2010 by a bad year for democrats by a landslide. after he left office he looked to his most successful compliments. he raised the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. [applause] he signed into law the marriage equality act. [applause] he signed into law a legislation abolishing the death penalty.

[applause] and he was also instrumental in passing the dream act to provide tuition for undocumented immigrants. [applause] when he left office, marilyn recovered 100% of the jobs in a lost or the recession. -- maryland recovered 100% of the jobs. [applause] maryland public schools were ranked number one in the nation for five years in a row. [applause] and finally, the u.s. chamber of congress, which is not always kind to democrats, recognized him because maryland was number one for entrepreneurship and innovation for three years in a row. [applause] please give a nice round of applause to governor o'malley. [applause]

martin o'malley: peggy very much. thank you very much. let us give it up for jim webb. senator webb, thank you for your message of fairness security, and basic governance. i want you all to turn to one another and say it is good to be a democrat from polk county. now turn to your other neighbor. now that we've established that, let us establish one other very important thing that i was taught -- by a maryland senior senator. as democrats, we are great believers in the truth that programs should end on the same day they start. [laughter] [applause]

and so i went to get right into it. tom henderson, i want to thank you. i want to thank all of you for being here today. sharon and the family of congressman neil smith, i want to thank you for everything you did. my 17-year-old son william -- [applause] and sharon, i know that families give up a lot to support their parents and public service. i want to tell you one other thing. that is that my mom, barbara o'malley, who is 87 years old and she found out i was coming to iowa -- she said say hello to my friend neil smith. because she was in the young democrats of fort wayne, indiana. where she got a license for a pilot to to protect the indiana coastline from german u-boats. [laughter]

at the time, though, she was in washington, d.c. and she remembers your father very finely. and she would see her father there in washington. please give her my best, i will write her name down on a card for her. i promise my mom i would do that. my parents were part of that generation that tom brokaw and others have called the greatest generation. it was not at title they would readily embrace themselves. as americans, they believe that every generation had an obligation to be a great generation. that is my message tonight. we still have time, all of us, to be a great generation. and our children and their future is depending on it. and yes, the future is watching. tonight, i wanted to talk to you what the story of us. about the story of des moines and baltimore. about the story of maryland and

you know, 200 years ago in the war of 1812, crew story. the british had just burn the -- burned the nation's capital to the ground. the capital was burning. the people of my home city, the people of baltimore, see the glow to the so. now we knew that they were coming for us. amidst the ashes of the nation's capital, the commanding british general declared i am going to march on baltimore, i am going to john boehner -- dine t here, because even then we had great restaurants in baltimore. [laughter]

governor martin o'malley: and then i am going to burn baltimore to the ground. the mission was not yet 40 years old and the american dream was facing the distinction. imagine what we felt that time. anger, fear, disbelief confidence shattered. trust totally gone. there are moments in the life of our country and they are defining moments where it seems that the american dream itself is hanging from a thread. and for america there is always a yet. the final thread can always be the strongest. 50% of the defenders were actually immigrants. one out of five of us were black citizens of an as yet imperfect

and only one out of five of those defenders were free themselves and yet somehow together we transformed our loss and our despair, and instead of digging graves we dug tr enches. and the people of baltimore stood firm. all of us today in our own times now seeing "the star-spangled banner." the giant flag hoisted in defiance over fort mchenry when the british guns gave up. let us remember when we sing the anthem today that the colors of the star-spangled banner were themselves stitched together by black and white hands. by men's hands and women's hands. hands of freedom, hands of

bondage, and i would submit to you that the hand that held the flag together is the same thread that binds us tonight. [applause] governor martin o'malley: and what is that thread? it is the threat of human dignity, the dignity of home, the dignity of country, the dignity of neighbor helping neighbor so that all of us can succeed. with the country's future onion balance we stood as one. fast forward -- hanging in the balance we stood as one. fast-forward. when i ran for mayor there was a different battle in the streets of baltimore and this time we were losing. baltimore had become the most violent, the most addicted, and abandoned city in america.

the biggest enemy that we face was not the drug dealers, it was the lack of belief. a culture of failure. cap was excuses as to why nothing we would try whatever work in one note of us should even bother to drug -- countless excuses as to why nothing we would try whatever work and you want none of us should try and -- and why none of us should bother trying. we started measuring outputs. we saw trash and we picked it up. we saw open-air drug markets and we began to relentlessly close them down. when the city of baltimore saw that the government was working again they rallied too. [applause] governor martin o'malley: together, in other words, we put

into action to colorful believe that in our city we are all in it together -- the powerful belief that it are city we are all in it together.baltimore went on to achieve the greatest reduction of crime of any city in america. [applause] governor martin o'malley: now we americans sometimes have short memories. but none of us will ever forget seven years ago when our country was facing the worst recession since the great depression. a meltdown on wall street left the nation's entire economy ending from a thread. but we refused to give up. we elected a new president to move our country forward and that is what president obama has done will stop -- has done. [applause] governor martin o'malley: and at that moment, all of us have a decision to make.

would we be a part of bringing the country back or would we sit back and see if you could? -- he could? in our state we started supporting our president. we tossed aside be failed, exclusive economic theories of trickle-down or voodoo economics and instead we embraced and instead we returned to the truth that our parents and grandparents understood. that the more a person learns, the more a person earns. that a stronger middle class -- [applause] governor martin o'malley: that a stronger middle class is not the consequence of economic growth, a strong middle class is the cause of economic growth. [applause] governor martin o'malley: i am not even sure our parents and grandparents, democrats and republicans alike, even have a

word for that kind of economics. they called it common sense. the more money that workers earned, the better customers businesses have of the better the economy grows. so true gather -- so together we passed the living wage. we made college -- [applause] governor martin o'malley: we made college more affordable for more people. we made our public schools the best in the country for five years in a row. we made it easier for people to vote and not harder. [applause] governor martin o'malley: and because we understood that renewable energy creates strong jobs and good communities, we seized the economic opportunities available in climate change if we rise to meet the challenge.

[applause] governor martin o'malley: together, we brought back the health of the waters of the chesapeake bay. together, we made maryland one of the best states for upward economic mobility. together, according to a report released this week, we made maryland the best state for women owned businesses in the united states. [applause] governor martin o'malley: and through all of it, the difficult years, we made sure that our state of the highest median -- had the highest median income in the country for all eight of those years and since the recession maryland has created jobs faster than neighbors to the north and south. it is not about left or right or center it is about doing the things that work. better choices for better

results for the american dream that you and i share. that is what it is about. [applause] governor martin o'malley: when a family can actually send sons and daughters booed good schools, the american dream is alive -- to good schools, the american dream is alive. they can work hard and claim a seat at the table of american prosperity and the american dream is alive. none of these things happen by chance. they happen by choice. the choice that we have to make you believe in one another, to believe in our country, and who believe in our ability, over ability -- and to believe in our ability, our ability to do that. we have now created jobs for 60 months in a row.

positive job creation for 60 months in a row. [applause] governor martin o'malley: we are recovering jobs faster than most other countries coming out of this recession. and that is absolutely the good news. but the bad news is this. but me ask you a question. how many of you by a show of hands firmly believe that you have enjoyed a better quality of life than your parents and grandparents have enjoyed? razor hands. second question -- raise your hands. second question, how many of you believe just as firmly that your children and grandchildren will enjoy a better quality of life and you have? razor hands. and -- raise your hands. that is the great question. for all of the good work that we

have done to bring the country back, people are more pessimistic now about their children's future than they were four years ago. the vast majority of us are working harder only to watch families fall further behind. for too many of us, the dream seems to be slipping from our grasp. you have seen this look in your neighbor's eyes and i have seen it too. america's are worried for good reason. 80% of us are learned -- americans are worried for good reason. 80% of us are earning less than we were and that is the -- not the way the country is supposed to work and until we solve the problem we cannot rest. [applause] . governor martin o'malley: get this. 50 years ago the nation's largest employer was mgm

general motors. in the average employee could send a child to college on two weeks wages. two weeks. recently the "washington times" ran a story with this headline. "the american dream is dead." let me say, here from polk county to those who would write premature obituaries to the american dream, the american dream is not dead and will not died because you and i are going to fight for it and make it through again. -- nmamake it true again. [applause] governor martin o'malley: our economy is the product of the choices we make and fail to make. we can concentrate wealth at the top as it never has been before

but we cannot create jobs with good wages to support a family? you mean to tell me we can pay record bonuses on wall street but we cannot eradicate childhood hunger? i do not buy it and neither should you. we are better than this. [applause] governor martin o'malley: we are better than this. we are americans, we make our own destiny. it is going to be up to the democratic party to finish the work that we have begun together. that work is to make the economy work for all of us again, to restore the american dream. [applause] governor martin o'malley: do me a favor here. close your eyes it is helpful. but i want you to think of your parents and your grandparents. they understood the essence of the american dream that we share

and it is this. about a stronger that we make our country, the more that the country -- that the stronger that we make our country, the more that the country can give back to us. people what will yet of the american dream, bruce springsteen, wants. [laughter] -- asked once. [laughter] governor martin o'malley: is a dream alive that does not come true, or is it something worse? our days unfold not give the light of possibility but in the darkness of fear. to make me dream come true again, we must fight for better wages for all workers so that americans can support families on what they earn. [applause] governor martin o'malley: and what does that mean? that means raising the

minimum wage, the threshold for overtime pay, and to make it easier for people to join unions and bargain for collective bargaining rights and higher wages. [applause] governor martin o'malley: that is what it means to make the dream come true. [applause] governor martin o'malley: and to make the dream come true, we must not allow another wall street meltdown to rain down on hard-working american families. it is not too much to ask and it is not to much to expect for the national government to reign in wall street and to keep big bags from ever wrecking the national economy again. -- banks from ever wrecking the

national economy again. [applause] governor martin o'malley: and to make the dream come true again we must embrace a clean energy future. we are americans, you do not back down from threats. we have to recognize that renewable sources of energy represents the biggest business opportunity in a century and you all are harnessing it here. look at the wind industry and what you want to win to put people back to work and give your children a cleaner and more secure future. to make the dream crew again we must increase social security benefits and not cut them. [applause] and to make the dream come true again we must invest in our children. it is absolutely appalling that you can refinance a mortgage on

your home easier than kids can refinance a mountain of college debt. [applause] governor martin o'malley: we have been talking a lot about the american dream. my father through it -- flew in a be 21 liberator in the pacific . he would not have gone to college if not for a country that created the g.i. bill. we need to make college more affordable for all in the country again. to make that dream come true we also have to be able to give our college graduates the ability to start their own dream, to buy a home without being on the bankable because of the amount that they -- unbankable because of the amount that they owe. the most fundamental strength of our country is the power of our moral principles.

the power of our moral principles. triangulation is not a strategy that will move america forward. history celebrates profiles in courage, not profiles inconvenience. everyday we must be unashamed, unabashed defenders of the american dream that we share. in other words, the dignity of every person tells us that the right to marry is not a state right. the right to marry is a human right. [applause] governor martin o'malley: your traditions is a generous and compassionate people here in iowa tell us that when refugee children arrive on our doorstep, from central america or any other countries fleeing starvation and death gangs, we do not turn them away.

we act like the generous and compassionate people we have always been because the enduring symbol of our nation is not the barb wire fence, it is the statue of liberty. [applause] governor martin o'malley: this is who we are. this is who we are. this is who we are. and yes, in god we trust. but the tea party measure their success by how many -- let the tea party measure their success by how many times they shut down the government but we measure success by jobs and opportunity for all. we speak for the tomorrows that can be. the american dream is what m akes america exceptional. fear and anger never built a nation. the country is built by the compassionate changes that we

make together. we love our country and what are country is and wants more we love what our country can still become. take pride in what you believe and the next time somebody asked you who you voted for, do not be shy. i want you to tell them, and i mean it. if a child as to who you voted for, i want you to say i voted for you. when you see somebody with health insurance now that did not have it before and they ask you voted for, i want you to say i voted for you. when you see somebody sweating through a long shift and they ask you voted for, i want you to tell them i voted for you. and when you see someone who wants nothing more than for their family to be treated with dignity and equal rights under the law, i want you to tell them that i voted for you.

and when you see somebody that hungers for opportunity at a good job, i want you to tell them i voted for you. we are democrats and we are democrats for good reason, as ours is the party of opportunity, ours is the party of optimism, ours is the party of the people, ours is the party of the american dream, and ours is the party that will move america forward. thank you all very, very much. [applause] governor martin o'malley: thanks, thanks a lot. [applause] >> several sources report that former secretary of state hillary clinton will be announcing candidacy for president someday on a video online, making her the first democratic candidate -- sunday

with a video posted online making her the first democratic candidate to announce. the video is expected to be released sunday afternoon and we will air it on c-span as soon as it is available. marco rubio is expected to announce he will be running in an event in miami. we will have live coverage monday on c-span. >> were you a fan of the c-span first ladies series? it is now a book. looking inside of the personal lives of every first lady in american history based on interviews with preeminent historians and biographers. learn the details that made me women who they were. lives, ambitions, and unique partnerships. the book, first ladies,

president historians on the lives of 35 iconic american women, provides stories of the women that survived the scrutiny of the white house while supporting families and husbands and changed history. it is an illuminating, and inspiring read and is available as a hardcover or e-book through a favorite store >>. >> virginia governor terry mcauliffe talk today about the investment history made an early childhood programs. he spoke at the center for american progress in washington, d.c. about how it is a cost-saving measure that ensures virginia will have the workforce of the future. after his remarks, a panel discussion on education. >> good morning everyone, i am

thrilled to have governor mcauliffe here today. we will discuss the values of states and communities taking action on early childhood action. really happy to have him at the center for american progress. he has been a leader on this issue as with so many issues. early indications are that it is a bright spot in the national policy landscape. it brings together diverse leaders at the city and state and federal level. at the state level and local level, we have bipartisan leaders focusing on these issues. i believe it is because there has been incredible data points on the return on investment we have from early learning. early childhood programs not only even the playing field for children they also build a workforce that can drive future economic growth and ensure american businesses remain

globally competitive. that is one reason president obama has called for more investment in early education. in december he brought together stakeholders including local policymakers mayors, superintendents, corporate community leaders, and advocates to discuss education and to harness funds. the next steps are to help communities implement proposals. state and local leaders are rushing to answer the call. states like pennsylvania georgia, virginia, and cities like boston and columbus have increased funding and access. we are thrilled to have leaders from those communities today. i am particularly honored to introduce governor mcauliffe who has really focused on investment in early education. it is 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. congratulations. [applause] >> i think it is really the leaders focusing on the long-term, ensuring that those businesses will have human capital needs met not now but well into the future. that is where early investment makes sense. if you are investing in k-12 it makes sense to invest in the early years as well because we know that is the start that it's need. we are honored to have governor mcauliffe here. he understands that prioritizing is essential to the economy. the has been instrumental in securing extension grants from the u.s. department of education.

this will allow the commonwealth to serve additional students. so we thought that it would be critical to have his voice year -- here is a community leader that recognizes it as an important issue into the future. governor mcauliffe? [applause] governor terry mcauliffe:l good morning everybody, it is an honor to be here and i thank the center for american progress for inviting me. the deputy secretary of education is here with me as well and we thank you for the opportunity. this is an important topic in the commonwealth of virginia and i would make the argument in the entire country. early childhood investment and education, i make the argument

will determine the kind of workforce you will have for many years to come and if you are going to be competitive in a global economy, better start early. it is an investment. as governor i inherited a deficit that i had to work through so to convince folks to say, take money and invest here and tried to close the budget deficit at the same time is challenging. we were able to do it. this is an investment avenues is an investment that will return over and over. i want to thank the center, this is such an important issue for virginia. i would make the argument for the country as a whole. we have made tremendous progress in the commonwealth and we have a lot of work to do going forward. when i ran for governor in virginia, one of my campaign promises was investment in pre-k early childhood development. i found it very important, it

was one of the main things around on when i talked about workforce and the economy. under that i would face headwinds -- i knew that i would face headwinds. there are only 32 of the 100 democrats. i knew i had a challenge. the head told me that reaches a total waste of money and something they were not interested in. i knew i had a challenge ahead of me. for me, what i had to do was encapsulate early childhood development. virginia is very unique. we are the number one recipient of department of defense dollars. number one in the country. we have the largest naval base in the world. we have so many military assets, the pentagon, the cia, quantico. when spending is cut back it has a dramatic impact on the

economy. sequestration is a big marker for virginia and it could have a crippling effect on the economy. i have worked with the general economy -- assembly to say that we have to grow the economy and be less reliant and build a diversified 20th century economy. you cannot do that -- educated workforce. it comes down to education. this is something that was very important to me as we go forward to build our new economy. to bring in those new jobs, we have been very successful in virginia. there he low unemployment. since i have been governor, we have done many projects. we have brought in $6.4 billion of direct investment. not that anyone is counting, but that is double that any governor in virginia history. not that i'm counting.

it is important. because of that, i was able to forge a bipartisan relationship with our general assembly, who realized that it has helped us move the ball. we have made tremendous progress in the last four14 months. when i became governor, we had some there a onerous legislation when it comes to women. not one health clinic will close down. i've tried to make it open and welcoming to everybody. i was the first candidate to come out for gay marriage. i did an executive order to allow gay couples to adopt. i am the first southern governor to actually perform a gay marriage. and the sky did not fall in. [laughter] open and welcome, if you want to come to virginia and start a business, we want you. make it open.

invest in education. listen, we face challenges, as i said -- historically, with regards to education. we have a lot of things to do in virginia. 52% of our three and four-year-olds are not in school. among them living in house holds, 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 rest until students reach kindergarten to protect them for economic success. research tells us that 90% of a child's brain development goes on before five years old. the point i'm trying to make, let us not pick winners and losers of birth. your economic future should not be dependent upon your parent's

financial condition or your zip code. we allow every child to have that success. if we do not do everything possible to maximize those early years, i clearly realized that these children will not reach their full potential. as a businessperson, i can tell you, if you invest early -- guess what, you save money on the backend. i would argue to my general assembly, it is a cost-saving measure. it gives me the tools to be successful. 70% of our four-year-olds are not enrolled in publicly financed preschool programs. it amounts to thousands of children. more than a third of our children live in economically depressed communities that desperately need a new generation of high skilled workers. we are parts of the commonwealth , southside, southwest -- we see the loss of holes, textile furniture, and tobacco.

they have been ravaged by overseas. changes in economic conditions, we have to bring businesses back to these communities. you cannot do it unless you have an educated workforce. i would argue that in the world communities, it starts in pre-k. i make the business case every day for what we need to do to expand our pre-k initiatives. the key has been, i believe, the partnership we have established with the business community. i make the argument that everyone who argues for preschool, we have been successful for the chamber of commerce and the community leaders have come out wholeheartedly to support the pre-k initiative. our virginia chamber of commerce, i think it is fair to say probably not the most liberal organization put together. it is wholeheartedly supported by efforts here.

they said their number one goal from our chamber of congress is early childhood development early childhood preschool involvement. the have the business community hand-in-hand, it has made such tremendous opportunities to work with the legislature. obviously we need to go to them to get the funding to do the programs we have. our top corporate leaders recognize in virginia that we will need 2 million workers in the future to support our state's economic growth. we are doing great, we have a lot of new business -- 351 new projects. we brought the men all over the globe, i was one of the most traveled governors last year. i went to china, japan, korea europe. the largest investment by a chinese company ever into the united states, we just one that -- $2 billion.

i just opened a new plant in appomattox where i was yesterday, the hundred 50th anniversary, when 150 years ago generals lee and grant ended the war together. in appomattox, i was there excited. he brought a company back from china in the largest deal and 44 years. we brought a company back, the thomasville furniture factory. we have turned it into a manufacturing facility. that facility is now making pollution-control devices. guess what, folks? we are taking them to our report , the deepest on the east coast -- guess what? we are shipping them back to china, selling it back. you want to talk about a new economy? that is a new virginia economy. the reason we are able to do it, i was able to convince the ceos in china that we had eight

workforce that you are going to have 15 years from today. you will not invest in a state unless they are convinced you will have a workforce for 30 years. it starts with early childhood education. everybody is beginning to get on the bus here to figure out what we need to do to compete in a global economy. every governor faces the same challenges i have today -- growing and diversifying the economy. i think we have now gotten to the point where preschool and early childhood education is not a partisan issue at all. it is nonpartisan, in fact, it is bipartisan. everyone needs to work together. as we move forward, i want to find the department of education. virginia was one of 18 states that was rewarded a grant with $17.5 million. in our first year, they will continue to support us. we work very hard to get this

grant. it was very competitive, and i'm so proud of our team that put this together. i like to thank my secretary of education, it is all the family in virginia. as a result of this new grant we will be able to serve 13,000 low income four-year-olds in a high quality setting for what we are calling our genia preschool initiative. vpi. number two, the number of schools that are title one schools in the region, number three, the number of unused slots available to our existing pre-k programs -- we give money out. it has to be matched at the local level. in that community does not use it, i just sponsored legislation -- we were prohibitive from

using that. if you have slots and another committee wants them, you should be able to use them. common sense, but it was not an easy battle. finally, a percentage of students were not meeting literary benchmarks. the program currently serves today before this grant more than 18,004-year-olds. who are at risk0 four-year-olds. most importantly high-quality teachers. the quality of the teacher at pre-k, to get that young mind and their -- get them inside an early on about learning. i always joke with my education folks, i want every child who comes in -- a crayola book that says stem. you have to get them thinking early on about the stem courses

as we go forces. not only stem, but also the other avenues we need them to be open on. we have state-of-the-art performance measures that were developed by top-notch researchers at the university of virginia. we want a child to staff ratio of nine: one. we really concentrate on parental involvement. you cannot do that if you do not have the parents involved. we want everyone in school, once they go home, the parents are not engaged -- it really diminishes what we are trying to do. we are trying to get the parents to come to school and be part of the process. obviously, we have expanded to support services and health care for these children. i can tell you more stories from teachers and certain parts of the commonwealth. when some of these children come to school. the close they have, just sad,

sad stories. health care is such an important part of that. i am so proud to talk about pre-k, we are changing the whole way -- a 360 degree approach. i have started a children's cabinet. i signed legislation for 35,000 pregnant women now have access to dental care. thank you. it is important during the poor e berthing progress. we in the state are spending about $68 million now in state funds for our vpi program. this grant enables us to do more to address the barriers in the community that are struggling. it gives us money if a local community cannot make the match this money will help us.

we have communities who want to step forward, we ought to be assisting that. this federal grant, i cannot thank you enough for giving it to us to do what we need to do. we will see the results shortly. we have put this in concert not only with our education department, maurice jones put this whole thing together. i i it all tie all into workforce development. we are talking about job growth and education. dorothy and i have five children. we want our five children to stay in virginia, they will not stay if we do not have jobs for the 21st century. it is a global economy, these children will go anywhere to get them to stay. it starts with early childhood development, i also want to thank robert who is a world-renowned researcher.

probably the best researcher regarding new teaching techniques. he was involved in putting these together. we have a great public-private partnership. i'm excited about the future we have in the commonwealth, i would say to the elected officials here -- the key to all of this is encapsulated in a and diversifying your economy. there is nothing better than success when you are bringing in jobs. making that argument, people understand that. you have a great ability to move forward. finally, as i talk about 360, my wife dorothy -- the first lady of the commonwealth. can you imagine being married to me for 26 years? she is a saint. her whole initiative is -- we have 300,000 children who go to school hungry.

you cannot learn, you cannot expect a child to go to school who is hungry. who's stomach is growling, they are not going to focus. our goal is to end hunger for all 300,000 children who go to school hungry. we have made tremendous progress. i want to thank the department of agriculture, we just received a major grant of 8.8 million for several grants to feed our children for 365 days year. we are one of about five or six states who won this award. we are tying it all into health. i wanted to come here and say thank you. we stepping out in front of our whole childhood approach. we are taking 360 degrees to what we need to do. results of an spectacular. the numbers that we have, look at the statistics.

those who have some kind of pre-k education, 90% of those children -- 97% are actually excelling. only 3% were not. for those that did not have a pre-k education, that number of those not excelling goes up to about 30%. from 3% to 30%. those metrics speak for themselves. it is an honor to be here, i thank you for inviting me here. i look forward to taking some questions. [applause] great. >> i'm going to ask a question ofr two. then we will take it to the audience. thank you again for being here. you helped us understand something that has been a mystery to me. so many of the benefits of pre-k

happen when -- the benefits of the investment you are making when you are no longer governor. in a way, it is one of these issues where you need profound leadership. you're not going to see the direct benefits, to capture them now. the argument seems to be that you can attract business. are there other ways, basically why do you spend all this time if the jobs will be created by human capital will help later? governor terry mcauliffe: it helps me, we have shatter all investment records in my first 14 months. i travel all over the globe, i love to bring new business in. that is why iran for governor. at the end of the day, they like

to invest -- memo that matters if you do not have economic activity to invest in priorities you have. i make the argument as i travel around -- one of the things that i constantly do when i travel -- i'm good at sales. i have fun doing this. i do not like to lose. education is the key. honestly, i cannot stress it to anyone who is trying to bring business to their state. the project we just brought to china, $2 billion, if they do not think they were going to have that workforce, they were not coming to virginia. my main argument that i talk about, low taxes and a business friendly environment, i talk about pre-k. we are starting our system early. in fairness, when you go to air

sia, they go to school longer and more days and we do here. they are keenly attuned to what we are doing on education. you better get in the game on this. or you are not going to get the business. we offer incentives, they are smart. they will determine where they will invest the capital. i make the argument that starting education earlier is one of the best drivers we have. i show it with investment, we can just talk about it. >> we did a study of a couple of years ago that showed how much actually china india are renting their 0-22 investments. governor terry mcauliffe: studies show it. 97%. these are metrics that we have.

people on the other side that argue against this, they cite one study. that after four years, they forgot what they learned. utah, and i do this, go talk to kindergarten teachers -- they say that is night and day. they know who is at pre-k. >> one of the great aspects of pre-k is that it is bipartisan. you see lots of governors democratic governors like yourself and republican governors leading on this issue. perhaps they're responsible for economic issues. we had challenge at the federal level to create that same bipartisanship. it is or anything we can learn from your efforts to generate by force bipartisan support? i see we have c-span here. i hope members of congress are

watching. we need reauthorization of elementary and secondary programs. politics is everything else. the transportation funding everything else, which is very unfortunate. audi on us as a governor, it is hard to plan. we cannot make plans without some certainty. sequestration -- they have to get their act together. we cannot afford the cost to the military. how are we going to fund transportation? i have 350 projects that will stop immediately if they do not do the authorization immediately. 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 the ability to not make decisions, and effects every governor in 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. >> questions from the audience identify yourself. dylan: virginia has excellent universities. are there ways to engage those universities more in this effort? governor terry mcauliffe: great question. the university of virginia is our key strategic partner. they are part of the children's cabinet. i've asked my lieutenant governor to headed up for me. university presentssidents are all part of the cabinet. all of them our pre-k we make

sure we have the leaders. but uva provides us with a lot of the research data i mentioned to you today. you're exactly right, we have great higher education. the we can do a better job when i talk about the key elements -- the teachers of pre-k. weekend do a better job. to train those teachers to get them active. and we need a pipeline as they are graduating. i've given several commencement addresses. now that you have a great education, it is your responsibility to go back and plan proceeds for young minds to get going to have the education you had. >> we are really tight on time because the governor has to go see children in virginia. i want to thank you for your remarks, we are going to bring up our panel. i want to thank you for being here.

most importantly, for all those kids in virginia. governor terry mcauliffe. thank you everybody. [applause] >> i am the executive vice president here for the center for american progress. it is my honor to moderate here. we have representatives from federal state, and local levels. to talk about the challenges related to early childhood education. i'm going to briefly introduce the panelist to you, and i will join them on stage. and we will engage the audience moving forward. first, in the middle, we have john king -- senior adviser at the u.s. department of education. prior to joining the department,

he served as commissioner of education for the state of new york. he has worked at both the federal and state level. during his tenure, new york state was a national leader in many facets of education. including an augmentation of career standards and high risk students. he has been a long time advocate for increasing early developers. john has extensive experience leading urban public schools are closing the achievement gap. preparing students to graduate from college. to john's right, we have mayor andy burke -- who joins us from chattanooga, tennessee. he secured a $2.2 million grant from the u.s. department of health and human services -- the largest expansion grant for early childhood to be expanded

to chattanooga. allowing children to enroll in early head start and early programs for infants and toddlers. he previously served in the state senate of tennessee chairman of the democratic caucus. as a member of the education committee, he was a leader on first to the top -- four raised to the top funding. and a complete college tennessee that transformed the system of higher ed. last but not least, we have virginia's deborah deputy secretary on how to expand. jenny works at george washington university to promote its science and technology campus in ashburn, virginia. i wouldn't dive right in.

i will start us off, with john -- if you could talk a little bit more we are lucky enough to have two recipients of the departments preschool development grants program funding. maybe you could give us, and we will talk to the other panelists about the work they have been doing, but maybe you could give us a broader national landscape with respect to that program. and the grantees that you will be working with, and then we can move to more specifics for chattanooga and virginia. john: sure, thanks for the opportunity to be a part of the conversation. president obama has a long-standing commitment. i have worked with the ministration. administration. improving quality, preschool

development grants are one portion of that. due to the grants, we have invested $50 million in 18 states to expand. we have 33,000 more students who are being served in high-quality pre-k programs the cause of the grants. but we had twice as many applicants. and so we talk about getting calls from governors. some republican, some democratic. expressing their disappointment they did not get access to those resources. we see the grants as a down payment toward a broader vision of what we hope will be universal access to high-quality pre-k. president obama wants to add an additional $5 million to the grant. we hope to grow the number of states that are participating. when you see states doing with these dollars, they are investing in partnerships to improve teacher quality

connecting preschool with family support and immunities, so that they can better support their children. we are really trying to galvanize an effort. what you have seen over the last few months, you look in the state of the state addresses you see governors all over the country like governor mcauliffe prioritizing them. >> could you talk a little bit about the impact of having additional federal funds in the area of childhood education and how you plan to move forward? >> we got the the largest grant in the state of tennessee. i want to tell john how attractive he is today. we have about 5000 kids not ready for school. as the mayor of the city who does not have a school system,

is a county school system, we try to figure out where we can make an impact. for me, that is from 0-5 in the summers. what you see, if they are not ready to learn, they do not catch up. if they make progress during the year, they revert back during the summer. it is hard to catch up again. we decided to focus in on this 0-5 space and the summer space. if you think about those 1000 kids not ready for school. that $2.1 million service many of those. i will also say, as governor mcauliffe says, you can hear it in the teachers. tuesday i was at one of the schools that is one of the lowest performing. the principal told me that many of her kids come to kindergarten

with 400 words and their vocabulary. a typical student comes with 4000. she spends a lot of her first years as a kindergarten teacher tried to figure out how we close that gap between 400 and 4000. >> jenny, can you tell us a little bit more deeply about your plans. jenny: i want to thank the department for the grant. we're excited to participate. you can hear the excitement stems from our governor and goes all the way down. we are thrilled. three things we are looking forward to doing. first and foremost, serving more kids in higher quality settings. the governor said over the course of the term, we will be serving 13,000 kids in higher quality settings. second, research and evaluation. we are going to be using the

data that we collect from this grant to better inform our longitudinal data system, to track these kids and see how the investment has paid off over time. third, that will inform our goal which is looking at state policy -- how we can take the lessons from this grant and make policy decisions at the state level to invest more and more effectively. >> in all three contacts, federal, state local, -- you alluded to this mayor. ensuring that there is high-quality and alignment between high childcare and other programs, what any of you like to speak to that a little bit? your efforts to try and create greater integration across settings for children to works

towards a larger goal. jenny: i'm happy to. we want to work with private providers. we see early childhood education as a public-private. virginia is unique in that we have a one term governor. we have four years to a copper shallot. we need to make sure we have partners in the public and private sectors on board with this early childhood initiative. so we are able to sustain it beyond our time. actually, one of the things i did not mention that we will be doing is working to increase quality and some of our nonpublic partners. to create classrooms and nonprofit private settings. that network is really critical and increasing quality across the sectors.

>> one of the biggest powers i have as mayor is to see people. we try to gather in all kinds of areas now, not this education all of our other provision areas -- more and more our goal is to get everybody in the same room and sharing best practices. we are doing that in the education context now. particularly in the university which i'm happy to talk about. but we want to lead by example. make sure that we are doing what we need to do. when i took office, chattanooga had a high quality headstart program by local standards. but we also know that we need to look at that to see whether it was of the highest quality that we can provide. sometimes high-quality meat not just instruction, it means you obey the regulations. like most things that come from the federal government, there

are a lot of regulations that come with headstart. we went to the head of our youth and development program, and he -- what he found is that 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 snack, they were leaving the classroom all the time -- leaving the kids with their hands painted. he came to me and said for $8,000, we can put it sink in every classroom. you would not have gotten that from the evaluations, because we do all the things we're supposed to do. but these common sense things, from teachers who are doing a great job, making sure we knock down the barriers -- still complying with the federal government, but we are providing

more destruction time to kids who need it. that kind of focus and determination is important at every level. john: the administration has tried to invest in improvement. we have 20 states working in the system around quality improvement. part of that is doing business to programs and giving them feedback in the instructional programs. part of that is in the data system. looking at the information about who is being served, who is in. that information can be a part that informs what k-12 provides the families. then the work on teacher development, making sure they have good training for the students. learning how to help students share well with others, how to express themselves -- these kinds of support are important

for the administration. >> you want to tell us more about the university? it is a very exciting one for our youngest children. >> i think is hard to think about early childhood without thinking about strengthening families. for a to be effective, we know that the quality has to be good. but we know that the parents have to be empowered to make the best decision. to go back to the question, at the strength of the family -- to give them better support, that provides immediate dividends to our communities. so, what we have decided to do is bring social service providers together and partner with them on what we are calling baby university. giving parents the best information they can to make the decision to be a child's first

teacher. we are trying to figure out we are going to do in this area. we had a roundtable with expectant mothers, this one woman who was probably eight months pregnant, she told me she had a four-year-old son. the son was hard to control disobeyed her a lot. 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 did not know how to discipline her son without doing to him what her father did to her. so she wanted to know, what do i do? we want to provide people with that kind of education. so that they can make good decisions and strengthen our families from day one of birth. >> we have these beautiful posters here, which is an initiative led by the obama administration.

stemming from the summit you had on early childhood education. can you talk a little bit about that, i think it goes to jenny's point about public and private partnerships moving forward. john: the idea behind invest in us is to bring people together. community-based organizations have a vision of high quality learning. a partnership between the obama administration, the first five years fund, what we have been able to do is galvanize particularly the contributions. at the summit, we were able to announce over $330 million by the foundations over of varieties of areas. high-quality learning in omaha neuroscience research, how we train teachers and support parents. the joy foundatio that is the

s investing in educators. we are working to organize communities creatively, the way the mayor has two expanded learning early opportunities. >> jenny, the governor mentioned the need to build access that we do have in place -- high quality teachers. in the expansion phase, that can be difficult. right? need to catch up. what are some things you see in that space, with the partners you are working with in the secondary community. how can we tackle that in the transition phase? jenny: we will be scaling up. we are not going to be serving all of those kids in the first place. part of the reason why is that we need to build that high-quality 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 renowned researchers in virginia hoping us with this initiative. we will be looking to the university of virginia to help lead the way on this initiative. so, i think, and the other piece of it is the governor's council on childhood success that he established last summer is going to be making recommendations this spring to form our next steps in early childhood education and teacher quality is good to be a large piece of the puzzle, as well. >> the governor also mentioned the desire to move forward with the reauthorization of the secondary act. we support that as well. for us, we want to move forward

with legislation. we think about how we can improve the federal programs that impact k-12 education, but also that congress recognizes what the mayor recognizes the state and local level -- that nexus between elementary and secondary education. we are hopeful that congress will include in the reauthorization a larger federal commitment to some of the programs we have been talking about. that it exists in appropriations land but not in authorizing land. it might not make sense to people, in the real world, but it makes a difference here in washington. i was just wondering if any of you would like to speak to that, to the importance of additional federal actions in the context of secondary education acts. to support early childhood. john: i am a former high school

social studies teacher. i mention the secondary act because it was adopted in 1965. secretary duncan just had an anniversary. if you think about the anniversary, think about civil rights. the civil rights act of 1964, voting rights in 1965. it is a part of that effort to expand the quality of opportunity. there is no question that one of the ways we can expand today is by investing in early learning. we just put up a sterling earlier this study earlier this week, only a few four-year-olds are involved. like head start. we have a lot of students that need to get the quality of learning so they arrive at kindergarten ready.

to address that very large vocabulary gap that we see. so the students get to the social skills they need to learn effectively in a school environment. we have an opportunity in the reauthorization discussion to express that real national commitment to early learning. that learning doesn't begin at kindergarten. school and begin, but learning doesn't begin -- preschool has to be a part of how we think about it. we are very hopeful we are discussing this with senator murray, he is been a longtime champion. we are hopeful we will see some movement. >> you had mentioned the fact that there was an alignment between the county school system and you are trying to tackle 0-5 at the city level, do you feel like -- how big is the obstacle to make sure they are aligned with what is happening? they need to be reinforcing each other? >> segmentation is an issue for

a lot of people. if you look at the county school system, we have a commission that controls the funding. we have the city that controls early learning. and a number of other initiatives. so, that kind of segmentation does not give a realistic picture of a child's needs. it should be our first priority. one of the first things i did in office was try to realign city government so that it paid more attention to children because we do not have schools before, we just ate out of the education space. what i did was i took all of the recreation centers, and i love shooting basketball as much as anybody i promise, and i rename them every one of them a youth and development center. we split them up. i wanted people to know that this is about the development of

families and young people not about recreation. and we started making sure that reading initiative, mostly computer-based was available in each of the centers. and now we have, in two years 3400 kids reading at least 26 minutes every week. even though we have this segmentation, what we are trying to do is at least build a pipeline that keeps going -- getting kids were they need to go. we have diverse responsibilities, at some point we cannot argue about control. we have to pitch in. >> at the state level jenny you are in the state department. how have you tackle that issue of ensuring that there is a holistic approach? that early childhood programs are aligned to success at the

k-12 level. jenny: you heard the governor talk about the children's cabinet. kind of surprising that is the first time we had one. pulling together the secretaries that deal with children's issues. health welfare, parental involvement, workforce development -- all of those people at the table. one of those pieces is childhood. and that was important to us because the biggest an issue we are working on is working in challenging environments. we see the most important answer to the question of how can we support the schools in our most impoverished areas as early childhood education. we see again that at the state

level hoping to set the level for our colleagues like the mayor has done. to do that as well. >> i want to give the audience a chance to ask questions. if you have a question, raise your hand, and billy will bring you and a microphone. >> jason richman, national review. there is an evaluation of tennessee's preschool program. the results of been discouraging. the effects mostly fadeout by the end of the kindergarten year. what effect does that have on your thinking? >> there is a vanderbilt study when i was in the legislature that we talked about a lot. it was still in progress.

it had some amount of fadeout after four or five years. there are a couple things. number one, we still have to strengthen what happens after they leave early learning. even if they are getting great a fax as they enter kindergarten, we want to make sure they sustain that. some of that has to do with what happens between k and 5. there is important social element to early learning and being a head start and places like that. that affects we see as important. there are studies all over the country the dozens in the same thing as the venerable study. and we need to recognize that. most of the study say something else. as far as i'm concerned, if we can help kids for 4-5 years

that is money well spent. >> hi, i am from alexandria, virginia. i wouldn't to ask about something you did not mention. what the government is doing about providing early childhood education to special needs children. the deaf, hard of hearing, the blind and others with disabilities. >> one of the things that we focus on is increasing inclusivity. we are supporting local levels of opportunities with students with disabilities to be integrated. one of the challenges is that the only students that are getting public we funded early learning our students with disabilities.

they're segregated from the population. as we move towards universality, we can and create a better environment. >> we are trying to do that in virginia, as well. using our grants but also our state programs. we have a great example in arlington right next-door where they do a wonderful job with the funding stream so that head start kids and kids with special education funding are all the same classroom. i visited it a few months ago. we're hoping to do more. >> 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. and now they are trying to get into helping parents and strengthening families.

we are investing heavily with partners who have special ideas and expertise in this area. >> good morning jane from the center for inspired teaching. i appreciate the argument for businesses. can you talk about the benefits of the whole child in early childhood education. social emotional -- >> both of us who have worked in elementary schools no that you can see achievement there on the first day of kindergarten. you see kids holding the book upside down, because their familiarity with letters is so low. you can see kids who are not playing productively with their kids because they have not had those kinds of support of experiences. you can see the impact for

students on the very first day of kindergarten, whether they have had the early opportunities. we know that students are less likely to need remedial work at the elementary level. and even the middle and high school level. you are more likely to graduate from high school, you will learn how to be successful in life. there are studies that there is a 9-1 return on the investment. because students will not rely on social services or end up in prison. this is an investment about kid's long-term success. one of our greatest sources foreign zaidi for for anxiety is worrying about weathering their kids are in a high-quality learning program. the ability to ensure that they

can go to work and do the things they need to do, it is not just a whole child -- it is whole family that benefits from high-quality early learning. >> national center for learning disabilities here. you spoke a little bit about inclusion can you speak about screening for students who might not have a parent with learning disabilities. and the effects of poverty as a neurological cause. >> one of the things we are doing again with our federal preschool development grant is systemizing formative 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 including social emotional, math literacy.

we are hoping to learn from that some of the things you just talked about -- what our true learning disabilities? how are they improving over the course of the year as they enter kindergarten? >> more questions for the panel? >> hi, i'm coming from the university of oklahoma. first off, thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience for us on this topic. we thank governor terry mcauliffe, he talked a lot about the national conversation release talking about early childhood education being also point for preparing you for the future. and increasingly in this globally world and economy.

can you talk about what programs like dual language immersion and early childhood education -- where they're taking place? >> there is great evidence for students not getting english at home, one of the best ways to ensure their cognitive development and their appreciation for their whole language and culture is to have high-quality dual language programs. one of the things that many states are doing with their grants is trying to support teachers and fulfill the native language skills and the dual acquisition of english. what we know is that english language learners, if the y become fluent, we have a

real opportunity. the other opportunity we have is to connect with services for the parents. some of our strongest programs are also providing english language acquisition courses for parents. they are providing opportunities for parents to get job skills, access to opportunity. those are huge opportunities to make real progress with a population of students that unfortunately are lagging behind. >> we have time for one more question. anymore? maybe i will ask the last one then. i will ask you to speak to the question in terms of the politics around the issue. it does seem like it is an area on state and local levels where you see bipartisan

support. what are the factors to having that bubble up and support the investment? governor mead are really good argumen mcauliffe made a great argument about the economics of the individual family. 65% of parents in virginia are working. making sure that their children are in a high-quality program. it is about the families economics. how do you build momentum politically for investment in the space? >> i have noticed that. this is something actually where there is bipartisan consensus

because there is public consensus. most parents, most families want to see high-quality early learning for their kids. no matter where you go, no matter 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 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 to be fulfilled as a citizen in the 21st century. to me, i think that the politics of this are great for early learning advocates because people across chattanooga and across tennessee and i'm sure across the country all understand the importance of what we are doing. that reverberates with

politicians across the spectrum. it also does not hurt that if you go visit an early learning center, and you watch what is going on, you see kids light up. have a sandwich with them, your day gets a lot better. you can see what is really happening. in the long run, i think going back to the argument of reauthorization -- we have a situation in a city like chattanooga, a metropolitan of 500,000 people, we have 1000 kids every year who are not ready for school. that seems like a number we can work with. it seems that a place we can make an impact. i appreciate putting a day aside for this. this is a problem that if we think about it in those kinds of numbers, we can ask a make an

impact. >> i would just say him very encouraged by what's happening in virginia. the business community is totally on board with early childhood education, which helps our efforts and not only a bipartisan but nonpartisan way in the commonwealth. we had an experience earlier this year where it look like we may be moving backwards on preschool eligibility in virginia but we heard such an outcry from southwest virginia far southwest virginia, which is not your typical liberal community that advocates for liberal programs, but we heard from teachers, parents community leaders, and republican legislators in those communities who were so worried that we were going to be cutting back on eligibility for the public preschool programs that we were actually able to strike a deal with republican leadership of the house and senate to move forward using our

previous eligibility criteria. so i'm really hopeful moving forward into the next biannual budget, which will be the first and only budget that governor mcauliffe will have control over that we will be able to invest in early childhood. >> i'm still optimistic about bipartisan potential in washington. we have great leaders like senator murray and congressman scott, but we also have congressman hanna from new york who is one of the leaders along the strong start legislation which is a comprehensive zero to five effort. i think the thing we have to do well as a sector is deliver results. the key thing that will help us maintain and build momentum is we have to make sure that programs are very high quality and the outcomes are very strong. that is why we have to think just not in terms of expanding access but improving quality.

>> i'm optimistic as well and i look forward to seeing how things progress in virginia and chattanooga, and thank you all for coming and spending time with us, and thanks to the audience for joining us. thank you. [applause] [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] >> tomorrow night on c-span mark barlow on the global water supply and efforts to address the shortage she says is a global water crisis. the event was hosted by xavier university in cincinnati. >> what is happening is it's kind of like a bathtub. it's like a bunch of us sitting around a great big bathtub with a lot of water and we have

blindfolds and straws and we are drinking that water really fast and we think it's fine because there's lots of water for everybody, and then all of a sudden water for anyone. it is called exponential overuse of something. you cannot see it coming. it is not like one and one makes two, it is the exponential overuse of something that's finite. last month, there was the world economic forum held for leaders around the world in doubt most switzerland, which it always is -- in davos and every year they do research on the major issues. they talked to 900 experts around the world and to a person it said the coming crisis is the water impact. ban ki-moon, secretary-general of the u.n., brought 500 scientist together and said what we are doing now is a planetary

transformation, as great a change to the world and planet as the melting of the ice age. and they also come in a separate, different study, again, through the world bank, the statistic that stunned the world at the time, two years ago, is by 2030, the demand in our world for water will outstrip supply by 40%. >> the chair of food and water watch, maude barlow, tomorrow night at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> this sunday, senior editor for the weekly standard andrew ferguson on his writing career, the gop candidates for 2016, and what voters are looking for in a candidate. >> they want somebody who looks like he has stood up for them. i'm amazed now the degree to which primary voters on both

sides are motivated by resentment and the sense of being put upon. those people really do not understand us. and here is a guy who understands us and is going to stick it to them. and that happens on both sides. every clinton will give her own version of that kind of thing. and i don't think that was actually true 30 years ago. resentment has always been part of politics, obviously but the degree to which it is almost exclusively the motivating factor in truly were committed republicans and democrats. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span's "q&a." >> coming up next, a discussion with republican senator mike lee of utah, a conclusion of our week long profile of members of

congress. and later, a look at the legacy of former first lady laura bush. utah senator mike lee spoke with reporters at a breakfast hosted by "the christian science monitor." he is the author of a new book "our lost constitution." he talked about the book and issues before congress. he also talks about the 2016 presidential race, which began with the entrance of his colleagues ted cruz and rand paul. this is just under an hour.

mr. cook: i am dave cook from "the monitor." thanks for coming. our guest is senator mike lee, and it is an opportunity for what the senator's new book calls a compliant press corps that is all too willing to blame republicans for anything and everything. [laughter] our guest tells of a unique childhood where his dad served as solicitor general under president reagan. starting at age 10, he began attending supreme court arguments. fellow mormon harry reid was a friend of the lee family, and as the story goes, once locked a

preteen mike lee in a garage. overcoming scars that might have caused, senator lee earned his bachelor's degree at brigham young university. rned his he clerked for several judges twice for samuel alito once when he was an appellate judge, and later on the supreme court. our guest was in private practice in 2010 when he stunned the political establishment and defeated robert bennett for the gop senate nomination from utah. ion from utah. the almanac of american politics says he was the youngest senator when he took office in january 2011. the senator's new book is called "our lost constitution: the willful subversion of america's founding document." it is his second book. so much for biographies.

on to the mechanics. no live blogging or tweeting. no filing of any kind while the breakfast is underway. there is no embargo when the session ends. to help you resist the selfie urge, we will e-mail several pictures to all reporters as soon as the breakfast ends. as regular attendees know, if you would like to ask a question, do the traditional thing and send me a subtle nonthreatening signal, and i will happily call on one and all. we'll start by offering the guest an opportunity to make opening comments and then moved to questions from around the table. thank you for doing this, sir. senator lee: two are very much. -- senator lee: thank you very

much. it is a pleasure to be here with all of you to talk about my book. i have enjoyed it immensely. i wrote the book for the simple reason that i think when you talk about the constitution in the abstract, it is a little easy to make it boring. i was raised in a home where we talk about the constitution routinely around the dinner table. i was about 30 when i realized that every family does that. as my wife explained to me, a few years ago, as i was trying to get my own children interested in the constitution she said whether you are talking to your own children or to friends or, you know, people of any age, it will make it a lot more and thing if you can tell it in the form of the story. if you can tell the story behind something. it makes it not only more palatable, but it makes it interesting. i wanted to tell a few of the stories behind the constitution, stories that inform us as to the reasons why certain provisions were put into the document in the first place, and also tell some of the stories about how some of those same provisions have fallen into disrepair, or at least fallen into obscurity and how best they can be

restored. one of the stories that i really enjoy in the book is this story about how alexander hamilton actually openly advocated for a monarchy at the constitutional convention in 1787. he did so at his own political peril and detriment. a lot of people believed this may have been something that sunk any presidential ambitions he might have otherwise had. his idea of the monarchy was, of course, soundly rejected by the convention, and with good reason. they were very concerned, first and foremost, about the excessive accumulation of power in the hands of a few, or especially the hands of a one. that is why spoke about the fact that it is a little ironic that we have consolidated so much power in the executive branch in modern times. we have done so, moreover, in a bipartisan fashion. this has not been one party or the other that has done this. nor has it been the executive

who has simply seized all of this power. congress has been all too willing, and even eager, to immigration. it is an easy way for congress to avoid accountability for making laws. it is a very easy way for congress to accept all of the glory and none of the blame when identifying certain broad policy aspirations, but not having to actually do the dirty work of setting the policy. these are some of the things i discuss, talking in that instance about the legislative powers clause, but in other instances i talk about the erosion of other things like the origination clause, the fourth amendment, and other aspects of the constitution that i consider important. they are far too often negelcted. with that, i look forward to your questions.

mr. cook: let me do one or two below my own, and it will go to eric watson, michael, burgess, phil, francine, sue davis, and lisa to start. let me do a constitutional question or two in the thought that my colleagues might have other topics in mind. as reid wilson recently noted in "the washington post," legislators in 27 states have passed applications for a constitutional convention to pass a balanced budget amendment, and proponents in another state where republicans control both legislative chambers are pushing for passage. do you support the move to a convention? a lot of people think there are dangers because it is not clear how it would operate and what subjects it could deal with. senator lee: i am one of those people that think there are dangers there because all 27 times we have amended the constitution we have followed one procedure, where congress proposes, the states ratify. the alternative is where two thirds of the state call for congress to convene a convention, congress convenes such a convention, and they become ratified.

i was taught growing up by my late father that there was great risk in this because we had never had a constitutional convention, at least not since 1787. the last time we started with a convention, we came out with something altogether different. my dad's view was let's leave good enough alone as far as calling for another convention. he has been dead 19 years, and some would argue that in those 19 years a lot has happened to suggest that congress cannot be counted on to propose amendments that we needed, and that the american people, who pretty overwhelmingly support the idea of a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. i will continue to push for a balanced budget amendment through congress, which is where i serve. that is within my ability to control. if the states want to call for a convention, i suspect they will continue to do so. mr. cook: i do read things other than "the washington post," but there was a fascinating column

by robert samuelson on the idea of balancing the budget, and in essence, the argument was either party -- it would be very hard to do without either party having to swallow a fair amount of ideology, republicans eating to admit that without tax increases, big and probably dangerous cuts in defense are inevitable democrats needing to concede that all the spending for the elderly is not sacrosanct, although i choke when i say that as you see the color of my hair. what is your view about the level of hypocrisy that is involved in calling for a balanced budget amendment when we know that voters want more spending than they are willing to pay for? senator lee: i do not know if it is fair to call it hypocrisy. i think these are difficult questions. difficult, weighty questions. they also would involve an

overarching question that looks at the amount of debt that we have accumulated, about $18 trillion. in fact, we are paying about $285 billion in interest on that debt. that is a lot of money. the scary part is it is roughly the same debt we had 20 years ago when the debt was a small fraction of its current size about 1/5 of its current size. eventually, the artificially historically low yield rates we are paying on treasury instruments are likely to return to the historical average, even assuming there is not a rebound above the historical average. even if they just returned to the historical average, it will not be very long after that before we are paying close to $1 trillion a year in interest on our debt, and that will threaten all kinds of things. so, in addition to the fact that it has been said that our national debt may well present

one of our biggest single threats to our national security, it also presents one of our biggest single threats to everything else that we do. mr. cook: do you worry about tying the hands of the government at a time when you might need to prime the pump? senator lee: i do, and i also worry about the government not having its hands tied to make sure that it shores up the very programs that are important to shore up. mr. cook: eric watson from bloomberg. mr. watson: your tax plan does raise taxes on some middle earners, and as been discussion on the right about the child tax credit. can you explain a little bit why that makes sense, and do you think senator rubio, should he announced for president, can win the nomination based on this? senator lee: ok. as for the first part of the

question, here is what we are trying to accomplish there. in addition to other features of the tax plan, we are trying to eliminate the marriage tax penalty and the parent tax penalty. the child tax credit is directed at the parent tax penalty, a little known but significant feature in our existing tax code that has the effect of -- sort of taxing american parents twice. once when they pay their taxes on the individual side, and on the payroll side, and again, as they incur the substantial costs of raising children. according to the u.s. department of agriculture, it costs on average, $300,000 to raise a child to maturity. today's children will become tomorrow's workers, taxpayers will be paying the benefits of tomorrow's retirees. relative to our entitlement

programs, hard-working parents get hit twice. imagine two hypothetical couples, and imagine for tax purposes they are virtually identical sets of twins -- similar incomes, charitable conservation patterns, similar deductions except that couple a has four children, 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. couple a has produced four different taxpayers that will sure plans for anyone that retired that shore up plans for everyone that retires. the child tax credit does not offset that disparity altogether, but it is meant to soften it. as to the question of whether senator rubio can wind on this

tax plan, if you mean this tax plan in of itself is doing to win in the white house, i do not think anyone will win as a one- trick pony, but i do think it is a good plan, and he is a good candidate. should he get in, i think he will do well. mr. cook: michael? michael: on the current plan to punish him for the 2013 shutdown [indiscernible] senator lee: he may have felt a difference at the time. i am not aware of a 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. reporter: senator paul has this legislation that lets states implement their own medical marijuana laws and make these no longer breaking federal law. is that something you support on the judiciary committee? what is your stance on that? senator lee: is this the one where he's running with senator and had a long conversation with senator joe brand the other day. as i recall, it would move marijuana from a schedule one to a schedule two, is that right? reporter: right. it has some medical benefit and allows states that legalize it to regulate it. senator lee: one of the reasons

for doing that, that senator gillibrand told me about is that you have some states in which there are researchers who are anxious to do research on cannabinoid 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. reporter: do you think the federal government should have overarching policies on that? senator lee: i think you can state a strong argument that a state ought to be able to allow for the the intrastate 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 gillibrand jill brant 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. reporter: 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 unrelated to this, your three best friends are running for president. are you trying to keep neutral that?any advice you've given them and which one will you back? senator lee: good questions. i wrote it on my own time. i don't discuss the particulars 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 that 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 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. [indiscernible]

senator lee: i'll be on the ballot in exactly one state and that's your state and my state in utah. mr. cook: can i ask you just a quick follow-up. a recent utah policy poll 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 lee: 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 lee: i've done several speeches on this. i'd like to see a candidate who is principaled and positive and proven. principle of meaning somebody who is not afraid to admit why he or she is a conservative, not afraid to demonstrate that commitment to conservative principles by embracing proactive, conservative agenda to explain how it is those conservative principles 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 merrier. reporter: does it give you any concerns that the money folks seem to be rallying so early around jeb bush? senator lee: 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. mr. cook: we will go to other reporters. that will take us a good deal into the hour. reporter: without violating your reluctance to endorse anyone

could you give us your sense of the three candidates what are your strengths and weaknesses are in the race? senator lee: 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 announced, i suppose. ted cruz and i both come from similar professional backgrounds. we're both appellate litigators and served as law clerks at the supreme court and we tend to 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 principles 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 by some 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 announced next. rand and i have been friends. before i met rand paul, i read a column by george will. it said if he were elected, they would become best friends and that turn said out to be true. i have 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 rand 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. 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.