conducted myself for the 40-plus years before i got involved in politics. my mom used to say to me all the time christopher, be yourself. because then tomorrow you don't have to worry about remembering who you pretended to be yesterday. it's great advice. i'll end with this to give you greater insight to the impact this has on real lives. so i -- i'm talking about my mom in the past tense because she passed away 11 years ago next week. and she is the formative figure in my life and i tease my father all the time he comes to my town hall meetings, i say to understand my parent's relationship, in the automobile of life my father was the passenger. [laughter] he really doesn't like that. but i do, so what the hell. so my mom in february of 2004

was on valentine's day was diagnosed with lung cancer. and she had been a lifetime smoker. and her disease progressed very quickly. and so by the end of april of 2004, i was at the u.s. attorney's national conference in san diego and i got a call from my younger brother saying to me, listen, mom's back in the hospital. really bad. if you want to see her you have to get home now. i flew back to new jersey and landed at newark airport and got in the car and drove to the hospital. and i got there and they started to give her more phone and trying to pain and i waited for her to wake up. she had not seen me for a week and said what day is it?

i said it's friday. she said what time is it? 9:30 in the morning. she said go to work. [laughter] governor christie: i said, mom i decided to take the day off. i'm going to spend the day with you. she said christopher, it is a work day go to work. i said are you afraid i'm taking advantage of taxpayers' money. she said go to work it's where you belong there's nothing left unsaid between us. and you know what? she was right. because of the way she taught me to conduct our lives. that thing she used to say all the time, you are going to hear it now. there are no deathbed confessions in this family. she was right. there didn't need to be.

i knew she loved me. i knew the things she wanted to change about me, but ran out of time to do it. right? i knew all that. so i leaned over and kissed her and i said ok, i'm going to work and i left and i never saw her again. but she let me go. if you want to understand the balance, in me, the balance is what i'm thinking in here what should i say or shouldn't i say i think of her. and think if she were here now to watch the sirk us that my life has become, she would say two things to me. first thing she would say, remember, i changed your diapers, don't act like a big shot to me. and second i could only imagine what she would say now. and secondly, she would say these people trusted you with the most important important

that they could give you in the state you were born and raised. you owe the person that. and so that's where i come down on the balance and has nothing to do with political calculation and everything to do with who i am and in the end, if you lose that, you have no business being a leader any way. be who you are. some people will like it and there may be some days where i may some things, maybe i want to phrase differently upon reflection. but here's the one thing that all of you will learn about me, you will never have to wonder is that how he thinks, how he feels, and is that what he is going to do or does he mean it when he says he's not going to do. if that's your cup of tea, new jersey has said we like this guy. and if i decide to run for anything again, if people like

that, then that's what they'll get. if they don't, then i'll go home. but either way i'm going to be who i am and that's the balance. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> hillary clinton in new york. vermont senator sanders presidential announcement and profile interview. coming up tonight on c-span 2, a discussion of global risks, general wesley clark talked about the iran nuclear deal and said we have struggles ahead and a nuclear deal is just a small part of it. >> we have to figure out between the announcement of an agreement to agree and seeing the details. we got to hope that secretary kerry and president obama take

heed of the concerns that have been raised all around the world about this agreement. it's not too late to stand up and demand the kind of details that would help us restrain the nuclear arms race. it may not be too late to try to do something more in terms of bringing iran back in, but -- and this is sort of my theme on this panel, i think we're greatly underestimating geo-strategic risk. the agreement is going to open up iran and investments will pour in and these countries will get along well. yeah, investment will pour in and iran will use its wealth as it sees fit. it will support assad in syria and develop deeper ties with

putin and squeeze the saudi's reaches in yemen. there is no end to the conflict in this region. looking at decades of arms struggle using the symbols of religion going after the politics of identity using the misshapen ambitions of misled young people who believe they can find heaven by killing innocent people, all of that is in play. this nuclear agreement is just a small part of it, and we have to be wise enough to use the agreement to not only deal with the nuclear issue but try to address and shape the larger issues. this is not a region you can handle by u.s. forces. we put our armed forces in and in my view it's the biggest strategic error made by the united states of america.

saddam hussein said he would -- if we attacked, we would open up the gates of hell. since he told us 15 years earlier we were going to have the mother of all battles and lasted four days we didn't believe him. but when you look at the consequences, the opening of iran, the clash that's going on, the rise of sectarianism and civil war, you realize these are issues that are much deeper, much stronger and much more powerful than we can resolve with 100,000 men. >> more of general clark's remarks along with tony blair and senator graham and others will be talking about the iran nuclear agreement,is is the middle east peace process russian aggression in ukraine. it is hosted by the milken institute and airs tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span 2.

>> 150 years ago this weekend, a grieving nation gathered along the route of president lincoln's funeral train from washington, d.c. to springfield, illinois. this sunday afternoon at 2:30 on american history tv, we are live from the cemetery in springfield to commemorate the anniversary of president lincoln's funeral. and a recreation of the 1865 speeches and musical performances and hiffletians and authors and tour of the lincoln funeral car. saturday, grand prize winners in our student cam documentary competition and at 8:00, the festive yits of prime minister abe and the toast at the dinner in his honor and sunday morning at 10:30, the supreme court of the united states oral arguments

on the issue of same-sex marriage. and on c-span book tv saturday night at 10:00 we look at the life of our first lady. and sunday at noon, our live three hour conversation with documentary film maker and author who has been writing many books. join the conversation with him. and taking your phone calls email, facebook comments and tweets. get the complete schedule at c span.org. next social researchers discuss the state of black men in the united states.

>> good afternoon. i'm very happy to welcome you to our panel discussion improving opportunities for black men, the role of economics, culture and policy. the cultural matrix understanding black youth, doing the best i can fatherhood in the inner city, helping black men thrive. my brother's keeper. these are the titles of the works of our very distinguished panel. each of our guests today has produced important work about the very difficult issues facing black men in high poverty communities. to be sure what we are talking about today is not the condition

or status of all black men. as professor patterson the contribution of african-americans to american life far exceeds what you might expect based upon their percentage in the population and we have our twice elected president of the united states to show the extent to which black men lead and succeed in our country. there are very serious problems, fatherlessness policing, violence, poor schools, all are too significant problems of black life in america and significant components of american life in america. to discuss these issues, issues, by the way which we are committed to focusing on today, we have a great group of scholars. first, we have professor

patterson. he is a professor at harvard university and author of numerous academic papers and five major a.m. deckic works. "understanding black youth," co-edited with ethan foster. i recommend it highly. we have the bloomberg preffesor of social at johns hopkins. she is a researcher working in welfare and low wage work, family life. her most recent work is doing the best i can, father hood in the inner city, another important contribution to literature. robert cherry is the stearns professor of economics at brooklyn college. moving working families forward and recently authored a paper

title labor market conditions and teen birth rates and his article helping black men thrive appears in the current issue of "national affairs." . and finally, michael d. smith manager's my brother's keeper, president obama's initiative. and to ensure all young people can reach their full potential. my heart is with you. as a former practitioner in social services, i have a special love for people who are in the game working to bring solutions for people struggling. we wanted to give you a special shoutout. i know it's busy at the white house. so with that, i will turn it over to professor patterson to begin our discussion. [applause]

>> thank you very much for inviting me to this important event. and i originally planned to do a power point but with only 10 minutes, i think it's best i spoke without it. and i want to talk about what we have learned from this work which was just published, the understanding of black youth. several years in the making and collaborative study among scholars contributing. and let me first say culture occupies a very odd status. traditionally most people thought culture was important

understanding the advantages of the rich. starting about the middle of the 1960's, which the publication of the report as well as publication of academic work on cultural poverty there was a sharp swing against using culture to explain this. there are complex reasons why. for complex reasons, having to do with racial pride and changes in intellectual society and that is beginning to change. has gone through revival possibly because of predictions turned out to be quite correct. but i'm not here to defend or

talk about this issue. how culture matters. and begin by making a couple of points about culture. there is no such thing as a culture of the poor or the culture of poverty. it bothers me that economists who have now especially behavioral economists are beginning to develop what looks to me like a psychology of poverty. but they are destined to make the mistakes we made 20 years ago before they realized what's involved here. it is shared knowledge about the world and it's not -- leave one more important right now. culture can change.

policy people hate to talk about culture because they have the impression there is nothing you can do about it. culture can change and we have examples of that in. even more recently, the incredible change in the culture towards gay people and gay marriages. over a period of 10, 15 years, we have seen change. culture can change and we can change it. another point i want to emphasize in every page of the work we never talk about culture in isolation. it's their culture and culture is kind of like which guides you. it always has to be seen interaction. economic factors. culture works in context. the same cultural pattern may suffer the consequences in one

context. culture is never seen in isolation. what we learn about inner city youths and culture of the inner city. again, i want to hit on a few points. we never never talk about inner city culture in the singular or black youth culture. there are cultures it is whom geneous culturally. there are three major, there is a middle class group that still live there. as much as -- over 65% of black americans from families grew up in the inner cities. the inner city has a middle class population and working

class that constitute the bulk of the population. and it has a group which is about 20%, which is a problematic group. disconnected. now i want to emphasize this. when you think of the inner cities including baltimore, just remember the the great majority are among the most stable god-fearing group. working class black americans go to church than any other group of americans. they are god-fearing and most law abiding group of people right there. disabuse yourself of the inner city. this is a problem that the baltimore police and police in many other cities have when they think of the inner cities, they think of a single group, a single culture, when in fact,

most of the culture of inner cities is god-fearing. conservative in some respects. what you do have is about 20% may vary from city to city from boston to 25% in detroit of the so-called disconnected, the street people or the street culture. and that is a culture of violence that is a culture strong emphasis on mass you lynnity and it is one which is a zone of instability and creates real problems for people in the inner cities. let me just adhere since the emphasis has been on the brutality of the police and rightly so, being an occupying

force, we are likely to forget something else which the work also emphasizes, but black americans in the inner cities are caught between a rock and hard police, between police brutality on one hand, an occupying force which profiles the entire black population in terms of the 20% and on the on the other hand that 20% of really hard core, if you like street culture types, which that has been a problem and a source of great violence. you have heard of course that the rape and homicide has gone on dramatically, horrendous situation in the mid-1980's. it has leveled off at a point which is still disastrous. that is to say the homicide rate

is eight times the national average and since 2003, among teenagers, it has been rising again. we shouldn't forget the other side of the problem. black americans in the inner cities badly need the police. this is the dilemma they has been an occupying force and seen as problematic and brutalizing everyone. the worst thing that could happen to black americans other than having an occupying force of brutal savages is to have no police. and that is being caught between a rock and a hard place is the biggest problem facing black americans now. those other three cultures are remarkable aspects of american life. they contributed to the dominant

proportion. this is not new. in the 19th century, the dominant popular culture and black culture in which the creators were marked, but in fact -- was the basis -- the most popular group. and that not only in music but fashion and so on and come from the inner cities. the inner city culture is one of enormous creativity. one of the things we explain is this paradox. but in fact, culturally very exeggetted in the broader culture. because that culture comes the fact that there is an interaction.

black americans have always been very very much and oshed in the dominant culture and even as it gives back jazz, blues, what have you. and this continues to be the case. and these values are reflected in mainstream in many important ways. in fact taking responsibility for actions is one of the things is when we are talking about black america. everything we have done and we have gone through that black americans almost to a fault take responsibility for their action and their plight. among the most -- big supporters of the military in this country. and in fact essentially, a group

of people who are about as american as you can get. ok. now what do we learn about the culture and poverty in the inner cities? we have learned that number one segregation matters. segregation matters. the long history of how american -- in the civil rights movement, dr. king and the leaders saw segregation as a problem. martin luther king was referring to the need of integration. well about the same time that there was revolt against culture , there was also a reaction against the idea of segregation as problematic coming from the black leadership. and same set of forces which led to culture as an explanation.

black pride. you know the rhetoric. but what it did as well as one tried to point out, it took off the problem of segregation off the table and let me tell you it is a problem because to succeed in america, need not just have book knowledge or what you learned in school but cultural capital and social capital which you don't get at school. social capital is the interaction, friends you meet who you know in america. you come to harvard not because harvard is a superior teaching school. there are lots of other places that are much teacher where you could get a better education in terms of the content and relationship between professors

and students. what you get at harvard is social capital. what you get at harvard business school -- you can read the case studies and acquire the knowledge is that very important social capital. but there is another kind of knowledge, which is the cultural capital which is acquired, which is knowledge of success in a society. that knowledge we did not learn at school. acquired passed down through families, through interactions and so on. knowledge that is embedded in interaction. we call it distributed knowledge. and that's what is excluded from. the cultures of the ghetto enhances -- provides protection.

we show in one of our chapters that religion is still very important. that when the church up to the age of 14 matters that you never go to church again and we go to great lengths to demonstrate but also presents problems. i want to move quickly to culture and policy because i was asked to say something about it. those of you in policy who -- let's get to the hard stuff. there's no problem with having many cultures to deal with. one socialist has argued that a variety of cultures presents a problem. and think of culture not in macro terms black culture or american culture but think it in

micro cultural terms. we move. what works? there are hundreds of programs at the federal local and state governments have for black youth. we have done a thorough review of most of the best cases and what we found is that many of them work and some even though a profit. ok. a partnership program is an example of a program that works. national guard youth challenge. very good. the rand corporation has done an excellent study of that. certain charter schools. kids really do better.

the youth opportunity programs do work. there are several that work, but are not cost effective. the job corps and some of them are overhyped. harlem children's zone. some are clear failures. the bush administration help the families program and one of the authors is here and did a wonderful study. so it's important to know what works and doesn't work. and ok i want to emphasize the culture of elites is just as important as the culture of black youth and understanding the problem. james rosen baum, a socialist at northwestern in a chapter looks for blinders.

an analysis of why we have such a high dropout rate in our community colleges and state colleges and he finds -- nothing to do with cognitive deficiencies, but has to do with the elaborate bureaucratic and economic -- extra academic obstacles which are in the way and recommended culture of elites. let me end by saying, however one of the biggest problems and it's cultural, is this 72% the fact that presently about 72% of black kids are being born -- the issue is not being born out of wedlock, a greater proportion of kids -- out of bedrock, the

bedrock that is needed for adult supervision. this is true whether you live in a presumptive society or advanced society. in other words children require adult supervision. you cannot have a system -- sustainable system of which as a result of this problem of single parenting -- a single mom can do fine, but no parenting is a disaster. and the reasons for this. partly social and partly cultural. but i want to say it is obvious that the solution to this problem, which is the source for some of the violence -- one of the main reasons -- i'm saying

family family. family. and the gang begins a substitute family. a single mom having to work two jobs from 6:00 in the morning until 8:00 in the evening and coming home, 3:00 from school to 8:00 there is no parent so they find another family and that's the gang. and the solution is not just saying pull up your socks. remember the point i made. culture cannot be seen in isolation. and the problem we face then is how can we work out the best sort of arrangement which will enhance and motivate people to

change. [applause] >> that's an act to follow for sure. so i want to tell you about where i'm drawing my expertise along with tim nelson, i spent eight years doing study of 111 low-income fathers in the camden area. i have joined forces and following a group of 90 men in four cities for your years participating in our nation's father hood programs and by chance i have been following baltimore youth who are all born and spent early childhoods until

baltimore public housing and in early article from that study appears in professor patterson's book. it's a terrific volume. we are going to hear from an economist next, but i think you know when i was asked to identify what i thought were the biggest problems everyone knows the answer to that, it is jobs and education. i'm not going to talk about those things now because they are not important but they are things we know. what i'm going to focus on is something more subtle but maybe possibly equally profound and i stumbled upon this insight. some of you know bob and heidi were around during these days, i i studied welfare and how single

mothers made ends meet. after interviewing mothers, i got a very strong sense of what welfare meant for people, what afdc meant and it was a source of separation of sort of pushing people across the road, away from the citizenship side to the disenfranchised side. almost you had to trade your citizenship card in exchange for your benefits. and when i moved to boston and was a colleague of orlando's, i spent some time looking at the old east boston welfare office. it is caked in grime. and over the door, there are these block letters overseers of the public welfare. and that building and i wish i

would have prepared a fotetooho for you. it says everything what welfare meant to people. it was a stripping of citizenship. so i finished that book "making ends meet." and studied the family and came back in 2007 to study the new welfare regime, the largest cash anti-poverty program we have in the country. and you get about the same. but you get to keep your wages and claim it. at tax time, you see the dancing tax men out there. 70% of the claimants get their money from a for-profit tax preparer. but any way, what i learned by studying recipients of the new welfare regime is that something

radically different had occurred with regard to citizenship. let's just take the h and r block that is seven blocks away from public welfare in east boston. you are greeted with a smile, and there are signs that says money in minutes. a popular campaign slogan that they were using was repeated in interview after interview i've got people. what we saw is people viewed it as a radically incorporating experience, almost a brand of citizenship and laura and i wrote an o'lop ed about this. why was this form of social policy or social provision so radically different from what preceded. what we learned it was very important that it was tied to

work. and i'm channels a book report to american values of self-sufficiency. and it's part of a tax refund and perceived as earned and third, you get it at h and r block like every other american. it is a brand of citizenship and what we argue in our book unlike its predecessors this form of social policy is knitting into society and neighborhoods and communities in a way that american policy has never done before. if you hear these interviews, people talk in such striking language about being real americans and how their children are real american kids, we know that it has huge benefits for

kids that extend through college graduation and if we believe joe, these programs, these radically incorporating programs might have positive results yet to be measured that can extend to voting and community participation. all that to say -- and this is not a liberal idea or conservative idea, but just plain common sense. i'm from minnesota and big on common sense that i think what this research taught me is we need to have a new test for social policy. when we think about a solution to the problem of anyness disenfranchised group, we can ourselves does it incorporate or disincorporate does it build citizenship or does it deny it what i'm proposing today we apply this to social policy for men. this can be a subtle thing and

it's not as hard as it may seem. i was recently at an international conference on poverty. the poverty center had a four-point platform how we were going to help men and i gave him a zero on the test because all four ideas were disincorporating in my view, but with small fixes, we were able to get him to 100%. so let me give you a couple of examples. child support, right now in all but two states we have what men called taxation without representation. you have no ajudication for parenting time. it is almost as if they are snatching your money out of your back pocket and i'm in favor of child support so i want to emphasize that. without giving you any recognition that you might actually have a role to play in that child's life and those of

us who are deep into the child support world are sickened by the circumstances surrounding the death of walter scott, which implicates the child support system. imagine instead the taxation without representation system you had the opportunity at your child's birth to demonstrate your value as a parent to sign up for child support and be assured that your parenting time would be adjudicated because you had a vital role to play. now there are many other examples. help celebrate the active provisions for those paying child support and there are more subtle ways, like instilling the basic expectation in nurse home visitors and in prenatal clinics that a dad is going to participate. now i want to draw here because

i was trying to think how to convince robert of this for some basic principles drawn. i'm a socialist, so my knowledge of what i'm about to say is very thin and i'm hesitant to do this because we are talking about adults and adults have equal status and equal honor and should be given equal honor to any of us in this room i'm going to borrow on the literature on parenting and talk about social policy and advocate for one that has this incorporating feature. we know that child psychology, permissible parenting isn't good. and you could think of the pre-welfare area with regard to child support as permissive or even as a form of not so benign neglect. child development teaches us

that author tative parenting is bad. high structure, but no warmth. and i would argue that in the post period, we have been engaging in that parenting. we have gotten child support up, but we have been doing it in ways of citizenship stripping rather than incorporating. what we know from child psychology is that the magic bullet is authoritative parenting where you have high structure and high warmth. we have high expectations for fathers to pay their child support but do so in a radically incorporating way. so we have to maintain high expectations. i know this is going to make robert happy. you have to work in order to get it. but we need to do so in a radically incorporating way. now, let me emphasize i have

become in favor of approaches that are really fully in line with american values and we make this argument and it's not like and in my forth coming book "2 a day" which will be out in september. this is why i'm so intent on talking about talking with high expectations and men's participation in their child's lisks. the history of social policy in america suggest this is the best way forward not only for us but for everyone including the disenfranchised because and as much i have documented the poor share many of the cultural values that we all do and orlando has pointed that out beautifully. we need to remember that one core american value that rings true over and over again and we can see it in our data is that

americans along with values and self-sufficiency desire and have a strong sense of community. americans want to help the poor, they just don't want to help the poor through welfare. finally, i do want to make one remark about baltimore, as a new daughter of baltimore, the greatest city of america and if you don't know why i'm calling it that, you need to get up there. my conclusion from the last couple of days of watching these events and coping with them, what units us is far more profound than what divides. i encourage you to remember the punch line of the op ed, incorporate don't separate the poor and for this audience, include men. thank you.

[applause] >> i want to begin by talking about employment issues. the latest data indicates that only 70% of black men 25-34, in their prime working and family years, 70% at any point in time are working. if you take into account the prison population, if you take into account that it could be some men one month, different men another month, probably close to one half of black men in that age group have substantial job idleness each year. so it's a serious problem, this idleness and it goes beyond data which may show 20% or whatever,

this age group. in my recent work, what was passed out was a shorter version of the "national affairs" piece. i link that to family. there are lots of reasons why there is unstable families within the black community and i think the source is jobs. that's why it's more serious than in the white community. you have the same problem in the white community but because more white men in that ige group are employed, you don't have it as seriously. and what is serious is that sure, a lack of money could lead to family instability, but i think the evidence shows that it's much more the kind of anger and frustration that many black

men bring into their relationships to lead to the disillusion of those relationships. whatever the reason is, you now have a situation in the black community where if you look at women who have more than one child 70% of them have them with different men. so you have this multi partner fertility. why is that important is because you now have much more a state of flux of black men in the lives of their children. much is written about abandonment, absent fathers and that is certainly a serious problem. only about one half of black fathers see their noncuss towedial children for a meal once a month. but there's also the issue of

child maltreatment. if you look at the rates they are triple when a male partner is present than if a black single mother lived alone. so that you have very serious dynamics that go on in the family. there are certainly issues of intimate violence. so i think that the lack of jobs has this dynamic. it's not cultural. you have it in white families as well. but white men have much more significant numbers of jobs. and i think that this kind of problem for children ends up in the school system. you see behavioral problems very early.

in pre-school, it's 2 1/2, three times the rate of black kids being suspended than white kids. you see it ultimately in the high schools where kids come into the high school, particularly the boys, the black boys come into the high schools with both educational and behavioral deficits. you have situations now in new york city, only 28% of black boys who enter the ninth grade graduate in four years. 24% in philadelphia. so you have these very serious problems. and they're just events waiting to happen in the street. but what is going to be done about these problems? yes, there are things that can be done in the school system.

certainly should be much more of a way of positively intervening in families or attempting to intervene in families when kids at an early age show serious behavioral problems. there should be more counseling, more psychologists involved in the school system, to on take an aproach than to suspending kids. yes, many families will say how dare you this and that, but there are probably a lot many families or mothers would look positively if this can be done. the "new york times" three months ago had a story about that. there are things that can be done in the schools. but i want to spend the rest of my time talking about what can be done to generate paths to direct employment. orlando spoke a little about the

elitism in the university system and being an economist i'm an elitist than most, which is this vision of don't close the door to four-year college for all, so that almost every program, even if it looks like it is occupational oriented like getting people in community college occupational programs, always make sure the door is open for four-year transfers. and that means that the academic skills that are expected of the kids are much more demanding than if it was simply preparing them for direct employment. i think that for high school kids, there should be much more of an effort to get year-round part-time employment in the private sector.

that's where subsidies should go, because -- as was mentioned there are soft skills that kids need. where do they get that? they're going to get it because of the segregated in housing, they are much more likely to get it if they're in an employed situation. where do they get their spending money from? 16 17-year-olds, they see what the world has to offer. where are they getting that money from? where are the girls getting money from? you know you look at in the black community the pregnancy rate of teen women, one out of 10 teen women are pregnant each year. that's down from one of eight a few years ago. but it's still serious. you look at rates of sexually transmitted diseases, you know there are serious problems and

employment helps in these situations because it gets the spending money, but also gets these soft skills. the second thing that i would mention is there are a number of programs in the high schools to move people in a more vocational way. bob is here. there are apprenticeship programs that should be expanded. there are these college and technical education programs, c.t.e. programs that get people into community college occupational programs. those are you'll fine and good, but if we're talking about the people at the most risk of not graduating high school, it's really the direct employment. and secondly, finding ways to link up partnerships with

certificate programs and very narrow occupational programs. and many of those programs are given by the for-profit. for many people, the for-profits are the worst and there are examples of these for-profits being the worst. but there are -- and you mentioned james rosenbaum. he has positive views of what might be the best practices for for profits. they are much more counseling and hands-on with the students and getting them training for direct employment, and i think it brings them out from the cold if there's partnerships and then you can pick out the best programs and get the counseling to the students to select what's best rather than this draconian

attempt to penalize them out of existence, which is -- which may work or not work, but that's where these kids are going to go. you know, who is going to i.t.t. or devry. university of phoenix graduates more blacks than any other colleges. strayer university. i think for the most at-risk -- yes, the community colleges have programs. but i think it's about to bring them in from out of the cold. i think we have look much more closely at trying to figure out

what goes on in these chaotic and too often abusive families and that figuring out how to get some counseling services to these families and not just use suspension or something that leaves out what's going on in the family. i think we have to realize that it's unfortunate, but many of these black men bring their anger and frustrations into the family and things should be done about that. but most importantly, we have to figure out how to have more direct employment and pathways to direct employment while they're teenagers so they don't end up as part of that 50% 25-34-year-olds who are out of work substantially during the year. thank you. [applause]

>> robert, thank you and the a.i. team for inviting me here today. it's an honor to be on a panel with such distinguished colleagues. i feel bad i don't have a book i've authored, maybe when i leave the white house. i thought i'd share a little bit about why my brother's keeper was created and talk about what's happened in the last year since my brother's keeper started. you heard today all the statistics. michael smith: you look at latino boys, young people from tribal nations certain american -- asian american and pacific islander populations. when you look at the boys, they're more likely to be born into low-income families to live in concentrated poverty, to have teen moms, to live with one or no parents, attend high poverty or poor-performing schools. when you look at what's

happening in schools and courts, they're oftentimes facing harsher penalties and least likely to be given a second chance. we see that they're more leekly to live in communities with higher crime rates and whether it's reading at grade level by third grade or graduating in high school, or unemployment, you see boys and young men of color just double digits behind their peers. then you have shocking statistics when you look at black boys, especially, where black boys make up 6% of the nation' population but more than half of the in addition's murder victims. so you kind of sit back and you pause and you realize, there's something in our stream. so we should do something about it. you know, at the same time, though, i think it's important that we don't forget the asset-based framing of boys and young men of color. you know the phrase, you are what you eat. if you're told over and over again that you are not going anywhere you have challenges facing you, you start to believe that. as i meet with young people across the country it's amaze,

even at an early age, how much pressure boys and young men of color feel like they're under, and how hard they think they have to work. there have been a few studies that have come out that talk about what's positive and happening with boys and young men of color, especially black boys. one in four black men are veterans. 400,000 black men are active veterans. there are more black men in college than in jail. 59% more in fact. 9 in 1 don't use any drugs or have not had substance abuse problems. seven out of 10 when they're in the homes are intensive dads, more so than any other race fwroup. changing diapers, cooking dinner shuttling kids back and forth to school. nine out of 10 completed high school or high school equivalency. so i think it's important as we look at shaping this challenge and also thinking about the solutions to realize that we have a generation of young people that have unique talents and assets and our resources so

we should think not only about the challenges that we have to face but the opportunity that we have to engage with the population that's really finding itself struggling. and so, you know, these statistics are challenging. and in many ways what led the president to think about creating my brother's keeper, i think for those of you who followed the administration this idea of an opportunity agenda has been important to the president. a man, i think, who saw his family life circumstance change, certainly for the first lady as well. how do you create ladders into the middle class for folks what are disadvantaged? but when we look at statistics around boys and young men of color, we realized we needed to pause and do something about it. the genesis of my brother's keeper was after the verdict in the trayvon martin case. you may remember the president surprised the press briefing corps and tried to explain some of the anger and angst that americans were feeling, especially parents of boys and young men of color. and yet another life that was

lost so so tragically. and talking candidly about his own experience. how he would walk by a door and hear door -- by a car and hear doors like or see someone hold their purse closer. we needed to figure out how to bolster young men and provide pathways to opportunity, we had to be honest that there were barriers that needed to be removed and we needed to make sure our kids knew that they mattered and we were face theegs negative reinforcements that kids were getting. that was summer of 2013678 he said, look i don't have a secret plan. i don't think year going to create some massive government program here. but there has to be something we can do. and so fast forward to february of 2014. the president launched my brother's keeper. what it is is an initiative to address these persistent opportunity gap that are faced by boys and young men of color and make sure that all young people and communities can reach their full potential. and we are looking at a trade --

cradle to college and career strategy. we are laser focused on evidence-based interventions. before i took this job, i ran something called the social innovation fund, launched in 2009 to really prove and prove and scale evidence based interventions. i think when they were looking for someone to run this, they were looking for someone who had that appreciation. one in eight nonprofits in this country spend zero on research and valuation. 52% don't have a change model. need is up resources for these organizations are down, we have to change the way we think and realize that good is not good enough. for those of us who have been in business and now philanthropy, we go completely to heart and lose our head. we keep artificially sustaining these organizations that have no real impact. and just counting how many kids went through the door while they're falling through the cracks. that's something i feel strongly about system of my brother's keeper is really based on

evidence based intervention and we're looking at six milestones on the pathway from childhood to adulthood where we know if we have an impact at that level it can be transformative for any kid, but certainly as we look at boys and young men of color. all the way from zero, starting early. entering kindergarten ready to learn, leading -- reading at grade level by third grade where we have the shift from learning to read to reading to learn. it's so important we get that done. graduating from high school, ready for college and career completing post-secondary education or training successfully entering the work force and reducing violence and providing a second chance. so those are areas we're focused on. even when we look at the high school dropout rate, we can applaud some recent gains we have made for the nation and for minority populations. i think our graduation rate right now is about 80%. but when you look at boys and young men of color, we are looking at communities down 50%. we had a team in from rochester a few weeks back and i think a

couple of years their graduation rate, a couple of years ago their graduation rate for boys and young men of color was 9%. 9% in rochester. i think they've worked it up to 20% now. so we realize, we know what education means for your future. so those are the areas we're working on. the president talks about it three ways. obviously, one, there's a moral obligation that we have to make sure that america remains a place where if you work hard and play by the rules, we have a responsibility of helping you succeed. because when you succeed, we succeed. really trying to return us to a place where our neighbors' kids are our kids. i grew up poor in western massachusetts. but i lived in a neighborhood where i knew i could knock on either door on both sides of where i lived and i could ride my bike up and down that street. i wasn't allowed to go off that street but i knew i could do that. so just making sure that we really ramp up that ethic that we have a responsibility for each other. i think the other piece is recognizing that even sometimes you can work really hard and

there are still barriers in your way that we have to remove. also that there's an economic imperative, not just a moral obligation. i think the stats are on disconnected youth, there are almost seven million disconnected youth in this country that are not in school and not working, ages 16 to 24, the vast majority of -- majority of them happen to be boys and young men of color. the data shows there's a $1.6 trillion loss to society from a fiscal perspective and a $4.8 trillion loss from a social perspective system of if we look at a nation that's based on production and consumption, we've got to make sure to the points that my colleagues here made, that we have boys and young men of color that are producing the next apples the next big thing in this country and they're incredibly talented and we also have to make sure they're consuming at $30, $40, $50 an hour jobs, not $8, $9,

$10 an hour jobs. i'll tell you what we've been doing. the first thing that happened is the president created the moi brother's keeper task force, which is a task force of almost every single cabinet member and white house officer director that has anything to do with domestic policy. and they were charged with coming up with recommendations for how we can expand effective policies, remove barriers that weren't working, and they gave those recommendations to the president and -- in may of last year and have been just tracking incredible work ever since. i'll give you a couple of examples. department of labor has the american apprenticeship initiative which is really working on finding pathways into employment and trying to jump start that american spirit of apprenticeship. we heard about the national forward youth challenge. public-private partnerships like americorps creating youth opportunity americorps to make sure the disconnected youth, kids at risk of being disconnected are serving and being served at the same time. there's 21st century opportunity

corps, the roosevelt idea of getting young people involved and working and getting their hands dirty in the forest, urban forests as well. we're seeing the department of education an justice issuing new guidance, so there was correctional education guidance. i joined secretary duncan and former attorney general holder for an event at an alexandria juvenile detention facility that was telling juvenile detention centers, you have to educate young people when they're in your facilities. if they have disabilities they're given certain allowances. there's a certain amount of time they have to be in the classroom and they're eligible for pell grants. just clarifying the rules has been hugely helpful for communities. you saw the 21st century policing task force where communities are working to work on law enforcement relationships with communities. and then department of education is working on the school suspension reform piece as well where we're seeing young boys and girls especially young boys

and girls of color being suspended at ridiculously disproportionate rates as early as pre-k for things you used to get a tout or go in the corner, you're now pulled out of the school and sometimes involving law enforcement. we're trying to help communities think about those challenges and department of health and human services made more money available for menl health. that's what's happening on the policy side of things. one of the pieces i'm most excited about is play space work. the president launched the my brother's keeper community challenge. there are nearly 200 mayors, tribal leaders and county executived who have accepted the president's my brother's keeper community challenge. within 180 days they're convening their community in a very public way and developing local action plans for how to reduce disparities and beginning to implement at the end of 180 days system of mayor nut for the philadelphia was the first to relesion his plan which will include trying to reduce juvenile arrests by 50%. and they have plans and dollars

for how to get it done. mayor ballard in indianapolis was the second to release a plan. they're looking at ding harlem children's child block by block work and they have foundation funding to support the executive director for three years. so we're seeing communities take this incredibly, incredibly seriously. really excited about that. there's been all sorts of n.g.o.'s helping these communities. we have one of hn -- we have one-on-one coaching for them, web fars and tool tips. it's created a great momentum across the country. lastly, there's been a great private sector response. i was just with the c.e.o. of u.b.s. this morning. we are just hearing from corporate c.e.o.'s that this is hugely important to their bottom lines, figuring out how to get this right figuring out what it mean for their work force. there's been over $300 million in investments between philanthropy and the business community. prudential did a big grant

around techny assistance and a social enterprise fund they also launch. nba has a big mentoring campaign. u.b.s. has their next jen leaders program. -- their nextgen leaders program. we have been really impressed to see corporate america step up. the first year of my brother's keeper has been about building the infrastructure and beginning to implement the work in these three work streams. now we're focused on impact and making sure that these communities are ready to report on progress. that we are making sure that the federal policy efforts are implemented well and that we can report on what's happening. and making sure that this work is leading to impact and embedded in a way so that this isn't just something that's the president's and when we leave in 18 months, that this work continues. and i'm hopeful and i can see from the movement that's built around the country that that will happen. i'll leave it there. >> that was great. thank you to all four panelists. now i have a few questions,

maybe two or three questions and then we'll open it up to the audience. there may be some reaction to some of the things that were said. so professor patterson, i strung together some sentences in your book and if i've taken liberties, a-- i apologize. i wanted to read, give you a few of them. you say above all, african-americans must find a way of providing a viable household environment with authority tative care givers and positive role models for their children. we do not propose to tell african-americans what kind of household arrangements or union patterns to choose but we do say that a better arrangement must be found if the mass of african-americans, especially their youth are ever to participate fully in the complex, post-industrial society in which they live and that this might require a social movement akin to the civil rights movement, though one now directed at internal social and cultural transformation, facilitated, to be sure, by

strong and sympathetic government and private sector support system of my question is, we've heard a lot about the partnership, early childhood development, more jobs. i'm a government person. i'm familiar with all those thinings. these interventions. child support reform. professor patternson and the rest of the -- patter southern and the rest of the panel if we do those things but not what you're talking about here, do you think we'll be successful? orlando patterson: i want to emphasize this has got to be a mutual effort. that is to say the government and the private sector has got to be involved in incentivizing this movement. and you know, as a comparative sociologist i search around the world to see if we have another situation like this and i couldn't find any.

whether it's in what used to be called prim tev societies or the most liberal societies or so on. there have been many experiments, the kibbutz in israel and others, this iceland i think thing which intrigued me for a while because a higher proportion of icelandic kids do, but it's not a problem. the reason it's not a problem is because eventually most icelandic patients do get together even if the kids are born out of wedlock. more importantly the icelandic states provide support at those seven key points in terms of tribe care. for me, i'm very focused on the age problem. when you look closely at the child rearing arrangement, and there has been excellent work

with a detailed look at what the arrangements are, whether it's organized arrangement, a grandmother, so on. interesting thing is that african-americans don't differ much in terms of the kids being left alone. the interesting difference, the one seg cant difference is the much higher proportion rely on siblings. it's like twice as high as others. all the kids -- older kids are bringing up younger kids. and that's -- i'll tell you why that's problematic. apart from the fact that it's not a great idea to have kids bringing up kids, no matter how responsible they are in fact usually better for the kids doing the bringing up because then she yoorblely shea because they're responsible, the sources of why black women are considered so much better, but one of the consequences i fear is you get you normalize the idea of kids being authority

figures. for boys that just streams right into the gang leader being the substitute for the sibling who was at home. so i mean, that is -- somehow we've got to, and this is where the government and the private sector need to find ways in which we provide institutional framework after school programs are -- have got to be very important. there are studies on that. but this is where i would really really focus. the three to seven problem. we need structures. we know they work. we know they improve cognitive skills but more important, we know that they're highly related with reduction in violence. so that's where i put my money. as far as government support. but having done all of that, it seems to me that african-americans have got to work out, and i'm not going to tell them how to do it, and you

know there are variations that are possible, but they've got to work out a system in which -- which ensures that there's an adult there supervising the socialization of children because too many of them are being socialized by kids or not being supervised at all. that's one way to emphasize one thing. now what they're going to do, i'll very carefully say, i'm not going to tell african-americans how to do it. getting married in a suburban, two-family way may be out of the -- not in the cards but there may be other arrangements, the way i see it, i'm going to leave it to the wisdom of the african-american crowd. but some solution has got to be found. >> anybody else want to comment on that? and i have a follow-up too.

kathryn edin: i think anybody would agree that family structure is a cause an consequence of poverty. we demonstrate that the rate of instability and complexity, let's say in the bottom third of the income distribution, is historically unique and unique among rich nations. at no other time in history in a developed nation have we seen such a high rate of turmoil in the family and the evidence is mounting about the deleterious effects on kids. so the question is what to do? and doing the best i can we argue that the key, the know from the fragile families survey that the couples arrive at the hospital together saying they're going to get married, this magic moment, but when we look in depth, sort of under the hood ethnographically at what's going on with these couples, we find

in the bottom third of the income distribution, families are being formed by accident rather than design. you know very brief courtships, not, you know, as orlando said no bedrock. these are not relationships, they became relationships after the fact. and response to a surprise pregnancy. the couple doesn't know each other very well. there's no glue. so when those hard times come, you know they break up quickly. about half within the first year of a child's life. but you know, men and women in early adulthood are in a desperate sense in a serge for meaning. if they don't have jobs and they don't have other sources of meaning, if they don't feel they matter, if they've not been given a meaningful way to contribute, children are going to become that meaning source. so wild bearing, we argue is motivated and in fact multiple partner fertility, this family go round that men are on and

this father-go-round that children end up on, we argue, is partly a consequence of the fact that there aren't alternative sources of meaning for men and women. one other thing i'd like to say is that, if you want to motivate a young man of color, talk to that young man about their kids. you know. we've neglected to emphasize or notice in this country is how much men have embraced the father role. but of course just at a time they've embraced it, they're less and less likely to be able to realy claim it in a meaningful way. robert doar: michael i'm curious -- >> can i? robert doar: sure. robert cherry: i think kathy is dead wrong. i think this notion that's based

on what men say is problematic. it certainly wasn't the narrative that you had in your previous books, in your previous writing. that these men, many of them, whatever their rhetoric is that they're behavior speaks much differently. and i think it's a balancing act we have to take where yes, i think they're genuine, they're not lying when they say they want to be this, they want to be that. and we should have ways to help them on that path, but we should have no illusion that that's their behavior. that, when we look at intimate violence, when we look at, you know the alice gothman book that just came out, she wants to blame all the problems on the criminal justice system, these men are not nice, they're

cheating they're irresponsible and i think we have to be much more honest. yes, we have to not be tough love and you know, like we are with child custody. but i think we have to take a much more honest approach to what their behavior is and not simply what they say in interviews. robert doar: michael do you want to comment before i give you my question? ok. one of the things i'm most fascinated about and pleased by is the example that the president and first lady set. and i was -- it took -- i'm so thankful to the new yorker for calling this to my attention this dialogue that is apparently in the new biography of the first lady that just came out. the first lady was a couple of years behind me in school, i knew her brother very well.

i'm very loyal to her out of that concern but the dialogue goes like this. when barack, dawdling over proposing would ask if marriage really mattered, she'd say marriage is everything. that's in this new biography about michelle which i think is the kind of biography that there was a lot of cooperation involved. so what i want to ask you, michael, sometimes the president gets some blowback when he talks about his example he and michelle have set. or the roles of fathers in children's lives. or the importance of two parents in kids' lives. how do you react to that? how does the white house react to that? what's the current position on the importance of them as role models for the country? michael smith: i think the administration has invested quite a bit in healthy fatherhood and healthy relationships. you heard the president, certainly around father's day talking about what the data shows. that, you know, when kids are

growing up in a healthy stable, two-parent home, there are all sorts of positive consequences. and negative consequences when that doesn't happen. and is that is something that the -- and so that is something the administration continues to push. what i think you hear from the administration is making sure it's a healthy situation. when two folks are coupled together. and so, i think that's one. and i think the president's example with the first lady is hugely important for communities across the country. one of the things i noticed when i'm talking to folks, whether it's my own family back in western massachusetts or other folks, they oftentimes refer to the president and first lady by their first names and it's not a disrespect thing. it's i think people feel an affinity toward them a familial quality to them. at my grandmother's house next to martin luther king and john f. kennedy is now a picture of the president and first lady. i think there's a huge role they

play in role modeling in the wonderful relationship they have with each other and their daughters. robert doar: let's turn to policing. both kathy and orlando talked about the rock and the hard place. so bob or michael and then you guys can circle back, how possible is it that the reaction to the aspects of bad policing will be no policing in areas where many, many families and citizens need that protection. michael: oh, my goodness. one of the inspiring components of my brother's keeper has been and i've been to many of these local action summits that the my brother's keeper communities are hosting across the country. in almost every single one, law enforcement is there they're there in force they're helping

to co-facilitate sessions, they're working with young people, whether it's a sheriff or head of public safety they've stopped me afterwards to say what can we do? i want to be more involved. i think my brother's keeper has created for communs that are developing these action plans a safe place to have very difficult discussions and also to think about what the loverple planning is, whether it's increasing community policing, whether it's expanding police athletic league programs, having more youth law enforcement forums, they're doing this kind of work for the long-term as opposed to waiting for a crisis to happen. i think that's one of the most hugely important things, to think about this now, be honest about the challenges, we had a group of about 20 cities, their law enforcement folks with us at the white house about a month ago, talking about data. talking about how do you use data. to make sure you're targeting time attention and resources

where it most matters. and not blindly going forward. so i just, i think that is just one of the pieces that's incredibly important. i also think that the policing report that came out the 1st century policing report has been helpful for communities because it gives them a tool kit. it gives them a guide. gives them a set of principles that have been developed by this you know, bipartisan, diverse group of folks that they can go back to their public safety officials and also to their local elected officials and ask what are we doing here? are we adopting these principles? how far are we away from that? that's the focus we're trying to put there. orlando patterson: i participated in one of these hearings. the mayor had a three-day conference on violence.

hed that the police chief there and quite a few lieutenants. they didn't just come in and leave they were there for the entire length of the conference. it was remarkable thing, community leaders from all over new orleans. as well as quite a few youth who were in there. it was a really, truly remarkable meeting which went on for 2 1/2 days in which we discussed the issue and came up with a wonderful set of suggestions. and in which the pless were very much involved. but recognizing the issue of violence on the other hand, the community itself has a role to play. and need the police in this program. that was -- if the others are like this, we're in for greatly improved situation. robert doar: kathy or bob? all right system of now we're going to open up for questions

from the audience and see what we have. in the back there, right there. >> i have a question about what you think are the similarities or differences with the trends that you've seen among black youth when you disting western between african-american families that have been here for hundreds of years versus young immigrant african families? because i have people tell me they use that as -- they say that oh, well, african families, you know, perform better or children from those kinds of backgrounds do better. what are your thoughts on that? orlando patterson: there's a wonderful chapter on that book on just that subject comparing with indians and others. let me get rid of one myth. a good part of the relative success, better performance and

school and so on in imgrants is a selection issue. it's not reflecting the african culture, it's reflects the immigrant who is part of a highly selected group. on the other hand, i don't go to the other extreme which people -- they say immigrants, they say culture makes no difference. it's just selection. because as was pointed out, culture is important, you know immigrants in america in interacting and taking advantage of the situation in america do develop the distingive culture. which in fact buffers them. even as -- even though they're living right there in the ghettos with the kids and all

the problems and so on. so culture does matter. not because indians are bringing over this wonderful indian culture with them it's not that the kids are wiser there are 500 million poor people or because africans are bringing over wonderful -- nigeria is a functional mess. but because of the cultural process of interaction of a highly motivated group taking advantage of the american context, creating something, an american immigrant culture which is in fact grown here. so culture does matter. in that sense. robert doar: sir? right there. >> my name is jimmy kemp, i run the jack kemp foundation and thank you aei for having us and you all for your perspectives. given that the topic is jobs and policy and the economy and yes,

culture matters, but in terms of public policy, government is not exactly a leader on the culture front. what policies can you specifically say, here's the lowest hanging fruit that kems -- democrats and republicans can get on board with and may not be surprised that i'm partial to true enterprise zones which from my perspective have been bastardized into empowerment zones, which aren't all bad but they're not enterprise zones which really unleash the aspirations that we want young men in our society and young women to have. what are some of the other -- robert doar: we'll have kathy and then michael, low-hanging fruit with potential for bipartisan.

kat 46rbings ryn edin: some will be low hanging, some will be bipartisan. the first thing we need to do is think carefully about, and i think you'll like this too, robert this process of accidental family formation. at the top of the income distribution we have all the plans in the world. at the bottom we have, to say there's a lack of bedrock i think is an understatement. we need to figure out how to motivate young women and men to plan their families. and i think we could do that through public information campaigns. we could do that with high school curriculums. there's been some experimentation around that. but if you form a family by accident rather than by design you are almost condemned from the get-go from having a stable family. number two, i think there's a lot of -- there's not a lot of support for this idea, and kind of unusual because i think we're a very family-oriented culture but the idea that every child should have a mom and a dad and

that the culture should honor every father and treat every father as if his contributions are important. i could go on all day about how alice hoffman's book is the least representative piece of social science i've ever read and there's very good evidence for that but these dads are not all, or even mainly thugs. that's not true. robert lehrman's path breaking actually research that i've tried to replicate has shown that at any given time a man who ever has a nonmarital birth is actively fathering, on a weekly basis, at least one of his nonmarital children. it's a complicated picture but but we need to focus on child support as a way that men can claim their right to parent their children. and the third thing that i would advocate for is the simple solutions that transform single mothers serve -- single mother serving institutions to fragile

family serving institutions. behind every single mother there's probably a fragile family. we should get dad in, get dad involved, get dad on the emergency contact form. michael: i'll be brief. i think there are three things we've been focus on and seeing some bipartisan support even if it's from the private sector. one is making sure we fill the jobs of the future. i started my clear in -- career in philanthropy in digital divide work. i saw my fair share of resume writing courses you bring people in and tell them how to write a resume and good luck. the shift now is what are the jobs for that community or that nation and how are you making sure you prepare the population to have the skiles they need? one of the big things right now are stem fields where we just have millions of jobs sitting unfulfilled we haven't prepared our nation to take on. so the president has something

called tech hire, trying to focus communities around building those skills and creating pathways and so that certainly is one thing. we're also seing a lot of coding work that's happening because sometimes, you can start getting into a lucrative career with -- without even having a four-year degree if you can learn coding skills. so that's one piece. how do we, you know, this is low hanging fruit and everyone can agree around that. the sec thing is just this idea about upskilling. i've had a chance, the department of labor has been really focused on this. i got a chance to see it at so many levels especially at the social innovations fund, taking someone who may be a bellman at the hotel and making sure they're getting skills and training on the job that they need to become the night manager and then the manager. making sure folks get the skills to take on higher paying jobs and get more education so they can take care of their families. the third piece i think is second chances. so we're seeing all sorts of,

just you have so many bad programs with folks getting out of jail and trying to get them a job. but now you have efforts like the center for employment opportunities that's an evidence-based program that is beginning to work with folks that are in -- that are incarcerated while they're still in jail, giving them skills, helping them think about life afterwards, getting them a job the day after they get out interacting with the employer, making sure they have money in their pockets in the first week. how are you integrating people back into the community. i think those are three things that are already beginning to work, that if we could get more support it could be even bigger and better. orlando patterson: i want to mention four. thing eprivate sector can get involved in after school care, i want to see the private sector become much more involved in reinforcing that because many of them are simply not efficient enough. and secondly, job training

programs. in our book, we actually studied, an organization which addresses the issue of not so much how you get a job, because the problem isn't getting jobs, it's keeping jobs. because they lack skills, emphasis on respect for example looking around, there are organizations which are six weeks to eight wakes to train these people into how you sort of how you smile at people. how you present yourself and so on. the one we started is called strive but there's many others. i would like to see that upkaled -- upkaled more. it turns out kids don't resent this at all. they welcome it. they want it. and third, i -- one of the remarkable things about inner skids is their interup newspaper doctor entrepreneurship.

it's amazing what's done with hip-hop, the way in which the technology internet technology is used. and i think that in some equivalent of the microcredit system which has existed all over asia and so on -- an american version of this in which these entrepreneurs these incipient entrepreneurs is encouraged and people are providing with some capital. i'm pretty sure it will work. finally, we're very impressed in our evaluation of programs to use opportunity programs. quite a few of them are getting evaluated and shown to work very well. have very, very significant positive contributions. so those are four, upscaling these would be great. four ways that i think the

private sector could really help. robert doar: we are scheduled to go to 1:30 which we're passed so maybe i'll take one more question, this gentleman right here. i want to thank the panel. >> i want to thank everybody, it's been very refreshing, i'm rying to capture this on video because i want to share it with quite a few people. i'm starting to know why sometimes academics tend to get out of touch because i think oftentimes we're using old and outdated data. i think what michael is talking about, getting out in the field today is going to be the best measure and caliber of trying to set the the nor as to where the dollars should go, as to what

the academics need to sometimes come into the trenches, or put research dollars in programs such as what we're doing. we run a program called career innovations of america. our program deals with student-based options. personal discovery. i'm working with young people that i'm sitting down talking with and i'm trying to find out what is it they want to do with their lives. we pull all types of discovery programs first. we do personal discovery, which is more subjective in nature. then we do objective discovery, which allows us to see what the divide and the deviations between subjectively what they want and objectively what are the inventories they have right now.

and then we attempt to build a pathway from what they say they want to do based on where they are with the various inventories as it relates to character, so what i'm trying to put as a question here, are there research dollars available for programs that need funding so that we can take models such as mine and -- michael smith: that's called a qwommen what you just did. my old job, we put money to improve and scale evidence-based practices. if you have at least preliminary results, that your program is working, as early as prepost test, we provide grants between $1 million and $10 million to both do the research and evaluation and to increase your

level of evidence, getting all the way up to randomized control trials as well as scaling. so it's national service -- nationalservice.gov. there's the i-3 program at the department of education that does the same thing. philanthropy talks about evidence and evaluation but the money is hard to come by. we have our grantees spending 30%, 40% on the evaluation fees because we know how importants that. i-3, very similar. there are also similar programs at health and human services. and funding things like nurse family partnership and trying to replicate those. but there is money certainly out from the federal government perspective. also take a look at michelle jolin's organization, america achieves, they have something called money ball, they've been tracking other funders and government sources and private sector sources to do this kind of work. robert doar: also at notre dame,

a professor has set up an opportunity to partner with organizations. great panel. thank you for being here. this is just the beginning of a discussion. we've got lots more to talk about in coming years. thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] >> that event from the american enterprise institute early this week. today, six officers in baltimore charged in the death of freddie gray. we'll be taking your phone calls. numbers are up on your screen. let's look at this story from "the new york times," six baltimore officers charged in freddie gray death. baltimore's chief prosecutor charged the police officer

police officers with crimes including murder and manslaughter in the arrest and fatal injury of freddie gray. a striking and surprisingly swift turn in a case that's drawn national attention to police conduct. we also heard from president obama today. let's look at what he had to say during an event at the white house and then we'll come back and take your phone calls. president obama: it is absolutely vital tat truth comes out on what happened to mr. freddie gray. and it is my practice not to comment on the legal processes involved. that would not be appropriate. but i can tell you that justice needs to be served. all the evidence needs to be presented. those individuals who are charged, obviously, are also entitled to due process. and rule of law.

and so i want to make sure that our legal system runs the way it should. and the justice department and our new attorney general is in communications with baltimore officials to make sure that any assistance we can provide on the investigation is provided. but what i think the people of baltimore want more than anything else is the truth. that's what people around the country expect. and to the extent that it's appropriate, this administration will help local officials get to the bottom of exactly what happened. in the meantime, i'm gratified that we've seen the constructive thoughtful

protests that have been taking place, peaceful, but clear calls for accountability that those have been managed over the last couple of days in a way that's ultimately positive for baltimore and positive for the country and i hope that approach to nonviolent protests and community engagement continues. finally, as i've said for the last year, we are going to continue to work with the task force that we put together post-ferguson. i'm actually going to be talking to mayors who are interested in figuring ways to rebuild trust between community and police and to focus on some of the issues that were raised by the task force right after this meeting.

our efforts to make sure that we're providing greater opportunity for young people in these communities, all those things are going to be continuing top priorities for the administration and we'll probably have some more announcements and news about that in the days and weeks to come. host: president obama from earlier today. we'll be taking your calls. the numbers to call, for democrats, 202-748-892. for republicans 202- 48-2921. for infeints and all others, 202-748-8922. we've already got calls on the line waiting to weigh in. tim is on the republicans line, clayton, alabama. tim, go ahead. caller: yeah. i wonder how far this is going to go. it's getting to where the police cannot even do their job anymore. it's out of line. it's just gone too far. is anybody listening.

host: we're listening to you. go ahead. caller: i don't know. i just -- i watch the news and see all this going on and when you go out there and act like a bunch of animals what do you expect? i mean, police have got to do their job. host: ok, tim in alabama. democrats line, erica in st. petersburg. caller: how are you doing today? host: good, erica, thanks. caller: i want to comment on the previous call thorne republican line who made a statement in regards to the animalistic behavior of the people participating and their given right to protest against things they believe are wrong in this country. when you are demonized and called an animal for having an opinion that might be a little bit different from the overall audience that's looking at the situation, i believe that in itself is wrong. we should all be able to express

our opinions regardless if they're negative or positive impact without being demonized for doing so. host: ok. officers charged today six of them, in the death of freddie gray in baltimore. a number of protests happening in the city and looting, rioting other the past week. we've got mark on the line from lansing, michigan. mark is a republican and go ahead, mark, let us know what you think about the arrests and the situation in baltimore. caller: yeah hi, how are you doing. i want to address a point here, actually a couple of points. not one, not two not three but four times did freddie brown request for help by the police officers. he wanted a paramedic to be called out to the scene. as far as i'm concerned. and these officers are denied that request. so i can see why the state's attorney decided to file gross

negligence charges against some of the police officers. makes perfect sense. i think that's going to be an open and shut case in terms of these officers being found accountable for -- or convicted of gross negligence. and the second point i want to make is, what would -- what was the basis of him being arrested in the first place? if there was no wrongdoing on his part, all he did was fled from the police officer, that gives police officers reasonable suspicion to stop somebody, not proximate cause to make an arrest. so the state's attorney was right that it was an illegal arrest. i think these six officers should be held accountable for that as well. and that's all i've got to say. thanks. host: thanks, mark, for your call. cnn has an article about the reaction. freddie gray homicide reaction, baltimore cheers and weeps. this again today after charges were brought against six officers involved in the arrest

of freddie gray. they are charged with a number of charges from minneapolis to -- from manslaughter to murder. looking here at an activist, some of what has happened in baltimore but essentially a mixed reaction here. cheers and weeping. in baltimore. let's take another call, donna from maryland, democrat, go ahead. caller: yeah, i'm not a democrat i'm really no party at all. i just think that the kids need to be reached and the children aren't reached and we've had 40 years of liberal rulings in this state of maryland. schafer, governor schafer was really bipartisan, you know. we had more done when he was governor. but all this other, they haven't helped at all. and when o'malley was mayor $50 million missing from the board of education, they didn't know where it was. $50 million could have been used

to do something for the kids, you know. i don't think we're praying enough either. we're just out there bashing one another. and that's not what should be all about. we should be being fair to one another and living due process with these policemen. no one really knows everything right now. one day it's one thing, one day it's another thing. host: let me ask, are you close to baltimore? caller: yes. host: let's take a look at facebook, some people weighing in there as well. nick writes, it would be nice if the president could resist commenting on local state issues. he's had almost eight years to bring change and help the inner cities. and then joanne says, i don't care how long freddie's rap sheet was, once arrested the cops were responsible for his safety. he was a human being. on the line from sioux falls, south dakota, democrat. caller: i just -- i can't figure

out what in the world is going on on the east coast especially. i've got black kids that live in my block here in town and they're nice kids. and they're growing up, you know they came from philadelphia but excuse me, you know, they -- i -- i just can't fathom what's going on out that way. host: what about what happened in missouri, though? is this just a coastal issue? or do you think it's something across the nation? caller: it's all over the united states. but it seems like it gets more -- more publication out that way. gets, you know and especially, i've been out to philly, and kids on my son's block they play together, they're black and

white and brown and yellow and everything else. i just don't understand it. i think the cops were wrong and -- when the cops are wrong that incites wry riots. and when, you know, if they're, you know, quiet, if they riot they kill people, just for the sake of having a gun, then go on to the system they have here, where they don't have guns. host: you mean the police, al? caller: that's right. host: republican line, leslie in missouri. caller: i just wanted to call and say i was born in the u.s.a. so technically i'm native american. host: ok. caller: i just wanted to say

this. number one, let me begin by saying first of all, i'm very proud of your military and i'm also very proud of our police officers. however, i co-do believe in due pr o-- i do believe in due process. and i do believe people shouldn't be shown without a trial and people shouldn't be mistreated when they're take -- taken into custody like what happened in the freddie gray case. i do think people have the right to express themselves but i also believe that people have the right to defend themselves. and so in that way, if somebody is striking you and hitting you real hard, and beating you up, i believe a person has the right to defend themselves. that's the way i feel and i am american. host: all right, leslie. another call here. this is on the -- our others line independents and others.

tony calling from marietta, georgia. caller: yes. i think it's just obvious a black and white issue. you don't see black officers doing the same thing to white people, period. children men, women, nothing. and the first caller on the republican line that attitude is prevalent amongst the white race. and it will most likely always be that way. and until we as a people wake up and change our attitude, nothing will ever change. host: tony, what do you think, do the arrests in baltimore change, do you think it could change, work toward changing the future? caller: no. we're dealing with a total white supremacist system that has to be destroyed, not changed,

destroyed. just justice should replace the supremacy. host: all right. let's look at facebook where you can join the conversation any time. here we have a comment who says, i hope this is a start to rehabilitating and rebuilding the relationship between law enforcement and the community. host: taking your calls on the arrests that we heard about today that were made today. six police officers charged in the death of freddie gray in baltimore. jacksonville florida, democrat. caller: this is mia. basically, i just have a few things i want to point out. i could be wrong. but this is regarding information i was reading online. i fe