dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: the original validation committee was made up of experts in different areas and observers belonging to the world health organization and the pan-american health organization, unh, unicef, the international community of women living with hiv, sensors for the control of the united states and

others amid visited different provinces. family nurse officers and hospitals in maternity homes and information processing units laboratories, and they interviewed program managers and beneficiaries of this -- of these services. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: the original advisory committee concluded its visit and expressed its assessment and announced the following steps, a process that concluded yesterday, june 30 with the recognition of cuba having attained the validation regarding the elimination of these diseases. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: thank you very much.

[applause] >> you stand up here, sir. thank you very much, minister. we forgot to point out that this occasion is historic because -- because it is today that we open the embassy in cuba and here. we are especially honored that you decided to speak today. mr. minister. herb perrone will field your questions and ask the questions. i think he can be heard without the microphone. >> let me stand back here so everybody gets the sound. our first question is from our former president. how will the restoration of u.s.-cuba relations lead to

cooperation between the u.s. and cuba to advance public health? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: we believe that reestablishment of relations with the united states like we do it many other countries with which we have relations in the fields of science and medical science dr. morales: [speaking spanish]

translator: will allow us to exchange experiences and knowledge among us all construct projects that give response to problems involving the population on both sides of the world. >> do you have an opinion about obama care or the affordable care act? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: we don't have full information that would allow us to provide a view. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: what i can say is for the last few months and years we have been receiving visits by the cdc who have

accompanied us on scientific events. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: and other personalities from the field of health care and science in general. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: it will show a high level of commit toward the solution of the problems of the populations. >> how will the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and recognition, mutual recognition, advance the dissemination of cuban knowledge and science here and throughout the world? dr. morales: [speaking spanish]

translator: we believe it will allow for the reality behind the cuban health care system to be better known. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: because many times, the interpretation shows lack of knowledge on this system. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: cuba extends cooperation to more than 80 countries. we today have -- we have more than 50,000 health cooperation workers working abroad.

and more than 25,000 of them are doctors. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: we believe cuban health care is free for access to everyone regardless of the color of their skin and no discrimination is made as to their political beliefs. it is based on a principle which is internationalism. that is why we based it on sharing that which we have. indeed, the main resource available for the cuban

revolution and medical services are human resources. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: this allows us to say today we have 7.7 doctors per every 1000 inhabitants. which is the same as one doctor every 130 people. with them having the highest value in our society and a high scientific level in these doctors. dr. morales: [speaking spanish]

translator: which is why we believe exchanging experiences and cooperating is the right path as shown by how we work towards the ebola epidemic in africa in which cuba was participating and so was the united states and it was working. i believe that is a road we can travel. >> will normalization of relations lead to public/private partnerships? partnerships with u.s. companies to advance health initiatives in

cuba and the united states? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: public health in cuba is free, regionalized, and he will be continuing to be free and regionalized and accessible. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: there is a foreign investment i ever national assembly in 2014. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: which provides

opportunities for entities to participate in cuba and we believe with the reestablishment of relations, the u.s. will take advantage of such possibilities as of course we would help when the u.s. blockade of cuba is eliminated. >> with the reduction in infection and mortality rates from hiv, what is being done in cuba to maintain a high level of public awareness of the risks of risky sexual behavior? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: the cuban health care has its main strength and primary care.

with in it, the program of the family doctor and family nurse. which allows us to have an office for a family doctor and family nurse every 1095 inhabitants. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: we insist that the main contribution can be made by educating the population via mass media. dr. morales: [speaking spanish]

translator: so that our population can be aware of the risks. this has allowed us to have an impact on health indicators. which, as we know, in a 50% level by the living style of the person. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: in raising awareness about health care, we are also promoting self-care of the individual. >> [speaking cuban]

translator: not only when it comes to hiv -- sexually-transmitted diseases and hiv, passive hiv. but over and above in the risk factors that lead to the main causes of death for cubans. today we have a life expectancy of's 78.5 years. we expect to reach 80 years of life expectancy with the expectation of people being able to live their lives normally inserted into society. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: the main causes of death among cubans today is cancer, heart disease is, and vascular diseases. translator: that is why we are working on risk habits like

smoking, exercises, a healthy diet, a reduction in the consumption of alcohol. this will allow us to have a greater impact in the health of cubans. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: in connection with hiv and syphilis -- with these steps, of the validation which has certified that we have eliminated the transmission of mother to child in these diseases. which should position us to continue working so syphilis and hiv cease being a health risk for the cuban population.

>> do you have any special programs or special outreach tailored specifically to gay men? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: we have a sex education program going on in cuba. which is coordinated by the national health education center which is under our ministry. so that it allows for the cuban population to have an ever greater respect for sexual preferences of people. we have a whole program devoted to these ends.

where our core of actions are implemented especially around weeks that we have in may devoted to these issues. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: when we have a special day devoted to the fight against homophobia. i believe in that respect we have taken important steps. >> how do you explain the fact that in spite of sanctions against cuba, cuba has developed one of the best health care systems in the region? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: cuba has its

platform or health care system established from the very moment of the victory of the cuban revolution in 1959. when we only had 6000 doctors. stationed mostly in the big cities -- of which nearly 50% of these doctors migrated mostly to the united states. we had just one medical faculty the at the university of havana. our priority for our government since 1959 has been the health of the cuban population.

which has allowed us to develop our human capital. today, we have, for instance, 13 medical science universities. translator:two independent medical faculties and the latin american medical school. which has allowed us to train the amount of professionals i mentioned. which in the case of doctors, are 82,000. dr. morales: [speaking spanish]

translator: and which has especially allowing or medical development and research to spearhead health development. we should also point out that we have been able to reap the results that have been due to the development of the pharmaceutical and biotech hologic industry in cuba -- biotechnological industry in cuba. for instance, the vaccination program of 13 vaccines against aids -- against aids vaccines -- these are nationally produced. we can say that out

of a basic amount of medications -- made up of 857 medications, 68% of those medications are nationally produced among which we can mention the retroviral which allows us to provide treatment for all those patients who need the treatment and to have them free of charge. development of human capital. the strengthening of primary care, medical care, via the family doctor and family nurse

and the development of cuba biological/pharmaceutical industries. dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: with a strong component of inter-sector participation and community participation. based on expressed political will on health care which has become a result of the cuban revolution. >> is the normalization of relations going to help you to advance public health with maybe needed medical supplies are easier access to medications? dr. morales: [speaking spanish]

translator: we believe, yes. the effects of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade to cuba has been higher than $60 billion. regrettably, how it has hurt health care and how much suffering it has caused cannot be calculated. we therefore believe the reestablishment of diplomatic relations and the lifting of the blockade should allow us to buy technology and products that today cannot reach her country and will be to the benefit of the population in cuba.

>> how will the normalization of relations lead to greater scientific corporation between the u.s. and cuba? -- greater scientific cooperation between the u.s. and cuba? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: scientific integration, i believe it will allow us to build proposals as generally happens with peers in the given fields of science. so that we believe it will have

an impact on our on problem solving concerning our own population and in the cooperation we extend to other people and other nations in the world. >> what would you say is the most important benefit to the cuban people of normalization of relations? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: in general, the issues along we could work we have to wait to build the expected steps that will be taken. and then we will see, based on this concrete actions, once

implemented, we can do that which is possible. >> what is your agenda here in washington for this visit? will you meet with congress or other u.s. officials? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: indeed, our visit has been due to an invitation we have received from the director of the pan-american health organization. with the aim of granting cuba the certification and validation of having eliminated mother to child hiv and syphilis. dr. morales: [speaking spanish]

translator: and we, of course, were happy to accept this invitation to speak with you but over the next few hours, we will go back home. >> do you believe your compliments in the area of reducing std infections will lead to an increase in medical tourism to cuba? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: indeed, the year 2014 as has been publicly announced saw growth in tourism and during the first half of this year, it has continued to grow.

so there is no doubt that going to a country where there is the level of safety that is there, that is available in our country and all that allows for a public health system like ours favors the strategy involving health tourism. >> this would be our final question -- what lessons can cuba teach the u.s. and other nations about advancing public health? dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: the first ring that

needs to exist is the willingness to push for the health of the population in the different places. cuban devotes 28% of its budget to health care and welfare and 9.7% of its gross domestic product. that shows the will that has existed and the determination to guarantee the health care of our population. along those lines, it's responsible to promote health care systems that are universal -- that have a universal provision of care.

dr. morales: [speaking spanish] translator: we could say that should include seeing health care from the point of view of the ministries of public health but health care has to be seen from the point of view of life. in that respect, and inter-sector approach and an involvement of the community becomes indispensable. i believe we have our own model for health care and every country observing their own characteristics should have its own proposal.

i believe this is also a formula for the building of a better world to which we have all been called for. also, there is a need to preserve the human species. thank you very much. [applause] >> we at the press club are very grateful for this superb presentation and this very historic presentation. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> we also have a wonderful audience. [applause] >> thank you all very much. thank you. [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] >> president obama announced

today that cuba and the united states will resort to black ties and open embassies in each other's capitals. today's announcement was in the white house rose garden. president obama: the progress we mark today is another demonstration that we don't have to be imprisoned by the past. if something isn't working, we can and will change. last december, i announced the united states and cuba decided to take steps to verbalize. since then, our state department has worked hard whether cuban counterparts to change that goal and later this summer, secretary john kerry will travel to havana to probably raise the american flag over our embassy once more. this is not merely symbolic. with this change, we will be able to substantially increase

our contact with the cuban people and our diplomats will have the ability to engage more broadly across the island. that will include the government , civil society, and ordinary cubans region for a better life. like counterterrorism, disasters bonds, we will find new ways to cooperate with cuba. we will also continue to have some very serious differences. that will include america's enduring support of universal values like freedom of speech and assembly in the ability to access information. we will not have states that speak out when we -- we will not hesitate to speak out. the best way to support our values is through engagement. that is why we have taken steps to allow for greater travel. people to people and commercial ties between the united states

and cuba, and we will do so going forward. >> more from president obama here on c-span tomorrow. he will speak about the economy at the university of wisconsin lacrosse will stop just before that former texas governor and republican presidential candidate rick perry outlined his economic plan at the national press club in them. that's live on c-span. >> this summer, book tv will cover book festivals from around the country. we are live at the harlem book fair, the nations flagship african-american literary event. at the beginning of september we are live from the national book festival, celebrating its 15th year. that's just a few of the events this summer on c-span's tv. >> the friedman foundation for

education choice yesterday released a survey about public opinion on k-12 education. the group supports expanding charter schools, private school vouchers, and other alternatives to the traditional public school system. from the american enterprise institute, this is one hour and 15 minutes. michael: good afternoon, everybody. great to have you here at the american enterprise institute. for the release of the 2015 schooling in america survey, and this is becoming a little bit of a tradition, i think, between us and the friedman foundation which is headquartered in indianapolis and they released the same poll here last year and we are excited to hear what 2015 has in store. for those of you who are following along at home, watching us on the live stream here, the hash tag for those of you that would like to participate for today's event following along on twitter #schoolinginamerica. how it's

going to work, they will present the initial findings, our i will moderate some questions and we will open up to the crowd. feel free when that happens, you can raise your hand and we will talk about that. those of you following along at home can tweet will stop coming up, we'll have the research director for the freedom -- friedman foundation for educational choice with the findings. >> good afternoon, everybody. i'm the research director at the friedman foundation for educational choice. we are a nonprofit nonpartisan organization that conducts research on school choice issues. we use our research-based to inform and educate legislators

policymakers, advocates at the state levels and around the country. before we get too far, i want to give a special thanks to rick and mike and the education policies study team for hosting today's event will stop it is a great opportunity to share these results and findings. today, we are releasing the latest installment of the schooling in america survey. we have been doing this for a few years now, our wording on various topics, but before we get into the slides we can throw a sea of data with lots of charts and it can be a little overwhelming. i thought we should that back a little bit and get a better understanding of what some of the social and political developments have been around the past school year. that could signal some of the

underlying context for the survey results and findings that we have. i don't know if any of you are fans or watch cbs this morning with charlie rose. i am a big fan and they have this great segment -- in that spirit, why do we call this your k12 america in about 90 seconds. we all know common core is a hot button issue. it is white-hot and has been for some time at state and local levels and is increasingly becoming a nationalist political issue. we will see this as we get into the primaries, moving into the general election, and just yesterday, we've seen a couple of states, ohio and louisiana take some steps to further

distance themselves from the common core state standards initiative. here is a picture of some protesters in the northeast somewhere. this is an opt out protests against standardized testing. we have seen over the past year -- the seeds were planted when no child left behind was first implemented, but then it started to accelerate past couple of years with common core getting more attention, that we have these pockets of resistance sent protest against standardized testing. we will see if that becomes a broader, wider social movement or if we see these isolated flareups around the country. here back in my home state of indiana, we have governor mike pence, superintendent of instruction sitting side-by-side.

this picture and cap's late to the highest level of state politics. the education establishment -- this has been getting a lot of and 10 -- a lot of attention. we will see next year that it's likely the two of them will face off in our gubernatorial election in 2016. education is a high profile issue, particularly not just an indian of other states around the country. here is a picture of nevada governor ryan sandoval. he signed into legislation the most ambitious school choice program in the country where k-12 students are now eligible to steve -- to receive a

state-funded multiuse education savings account. this is a new type of program first enacted in arizona about five years ago and now has been enacted in florida last year and then nevada and a couple other states this year. this will be interesting to see in implementation and how things develop in nevada there. and that was a positive development for those of us who are school choice proponents. yesterday there was a very negative development for school choice advocates. that was the colorado state supreme court that ruled on the douglass county state voucher program. they said it violated the state's constitution particularly the blaine amendment that's in the state constitution. so we'll see in the coming days and weeks if this case actually gets appealed all the way up to the u.s. supreme court. what's happening here in d.c.?

it's kind of, you know, when it comes to no child left behind and reauthorization. we have a picture of secretary arne duncan testifying in front of centers lamar alexander, tom harkin and several others. there's been a lot of bills being introduced around no child left behind reauthorization but it's unlikely, in my views, it's probably unlikely to be reauthorized in the coming year or so. so we'll see how things progress here in washington. so that's in context around the country. some of the social and political developments that have been happening. here's some background for our survey that we'll talk about. this is a survey profile. basically some of the particular specifications of the survey and how it was conducted and administered. i'd like to give a special shoutout to braun research who

has been our data collection partners. for almost seven years. they do a great job with conducting these live telephone interviews, providing the data quality control and the data. the interviews that took place for this national survey occurred the end of april and beginning of may. but -- more than all these specks, i think key ones to look at, and it's a little misaligned there, but let's consider the population sample of the survey. it's a national population of adult americans age 18 and older that took the survey in the 50 states and the district of columbia. more than 1,000 interviews were conducted. and the margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. when i talk about and we discuss subgroups like republicans

democrats, high income, low income, middle income, each of those groups has their own sample size and it's much smaller than the 1,000 for the total. that smaller sample size raises the margin of error. that makes those numbers a little less reliable than the numbers reporting for the total national sample. second quick note is we are not reporting today and releasing the results for african-americans, latinos and other subgroups based on race and ethnicity. we'll be releasing those results later on this summer toward the end of august. so thinking about our survey and the types of measures that you're lookinga and considering, so there's levels. there are levels of responses.

positive/negatives to whatever survey question or item we have. that's pretty basic and what we see most often reported in the news media. we also have and can be more informative in some ways. we look at the margins as well. those are the differences between the aggregate positive responses and aggregate negative. some of them call them gaps, the spread. that can signal the likelihood of that group to go toward -- go lean in towards the positive direction on a question or negative direction. and then there are net intensities and this met rick simply takes the difference but of those strongest held views on both ends. so the strong positive and strong negative. what's the difference between the two? it gives us a sense of the net intensity around a particular item, when talking about some of these school choice questions, common core, et cetera. with any type of research it's always good to get out there to

talk about some of the limitations that come with the research and caveats. first and foremost, this is exploratory, descriptive type of reporting. not meaning to imply any causation or suggest any causal connections, but what we're doing is reporting on the total sample and subgroups, the differences and so forth. there are relatively few data points to establish long trend lines. two, three, four years in some cases worth of data on our items. these are still relatively few for trend lines. as i mentioned before, the subgroups have a smaller sample size in our survey. those numbers will show more volatileity year to year. as with any type of research design, research program particularly when it comes to surveys and polling, there are challenges of potential for confirmation bias.

what we try to do, we work with braun research to build in as many checks and safeguards to guard against that potential confirmation bias. when we think about wording of questions, ordering of questions on the questionnaire, the randomization or rotation of scales or response scales within the questionnaire. so there are things that can be done to be built into the questionnaire to try to safeguard against confirmation bias. some of the general findings i'd like to go over he's for a couple of minutes. americans continue to be negative about the direction of k-12 education in the country. we've seen this the last couple of years. they are even more negative about the federal government's performance when it comes to handling matterses in k-12. wide gaps between the expressed schooling preferences and phone interviews exist when you compare them to school enrollments out there in the real world.

there's a big disconnect. on the questions surrounding school choice reforms, we see large margins of support across though board for vouchers, esas, tax credit scholarships. there's been some change where we've seen a dip for charter schools. 64% to 60%. vouchers remain relatively unchanged. we saw an increase in support of esa from 62% to 64%. and -- it's important to remember, even though there have been some of these changes generally speaking, american support any of these school choice reforms, 2 to 1, positive to negative. that's an important thing to remember. there are mixed messages that

continue to persist around common core. so we do see a positive margin of support for common core. however, the intensity is negative. and that stands in contrast to some of the school choice items we ask about where we see the positive margins as well as the positive intensities. and so then we asked about testing. pluralities, subgroups of school parents say too much time spent on standardized testing. and that is up significantly since last year. here's the outline of the topics we'll cover for the rest of the presentation today. from the more general to the more specific. we'll talk about the direction of k-12, rating the federal government's performance on k-12 education and schooling issues. school type preferences for the total sample for school parents. why would they choose one particular school type versus another. and then we'll go through some charts about this school choice

reforms and then wrap up talking about common core, standardized testing, as well as the state intervention in low-performing schools. here we see some of the trend lines for the general public's views on k-12 education. the red line has been stable. this year 60% of the general public said k-12 is heading off on the right track. 32% said the right direction and we've seen an up tick on the positive response from 26% to 32% over the last three years. it's still 2-1 a negative view of k-12 in the country. when you look at the public's rating of the federal government, 8 out of 10 americansamerican s give the federal government a fair or poor rating when it comes to handling matters in k-12 education. it's interesting to note the strongly held negative view, the

poor rating is almost twice as large as the bined aggregate. 20% gave a rating of good or excellent. you see the line at the bottom 2% said that the federal government was doing an excellent job. now we'll mover on to questions about school type preference expressed by those who took our survey. if it were your decision and you could select any type of school, what type of school would you select in order to attain the best education for your child? so all things being equal, what's your type? 41% chose a private school. 36 said regular public school. 12% said charter school and 9% said home school. you compare that to the one on the bottom.

those reflect actual enrollments of students in these school types. 84% of students in the country are going to a regular public school or traditional public school. 4% are going to public charter schools. 9% to private school and 3% it's estimated that are being home schooled. there's just a huge difference between these privately -- personally expressed references in our phone interviews and these actual enrollment patterns. and here's the trends we see on this question over the last four years. you can see that private school preferences have been the plurality for the last three years, hovering low 40s to mid-40s. and about more than one-third in the mid to high 30s has been the public school preference. roughly the last few years roughly 1 out of 10 preferring public charter schools and 1 out

of 10 preferring home schooling. so just thinking about the subgroup of school parents in our sample. this represents roughly a quarter of the respondents who took our survey this year. we asked a question, why would you choose that particular school in the previous question. what's the reason? this is an open end question. so our friends at braun will record these verbatim responses. usually it's a single word or phrase or sentence, and then we have categories that we code these responses into. and this is what we come up with. so you can see the largest proportion said better education or quality, which is kind of -- it's not too surprising. then we also see 14% saying they would choose a school because of -- they want their child to get individual attention, one on one attention. 12% say better teachers.

10% said academics and curriculum and another 10% said class size or student-teacher ratio ratio. if you took the first, third and fourth categories, about 39% are saying something that -- about school quality, student learning, teaching, academics is a reason why they'd choose the school and combine the second and fifth categories that reflects something larger about where 24% are saying they would choose a school for some measure of like personalized learning, customized learning, individualized learning. now we'll move on to the questions about school choice. and so we asked questions about charters, esas, vouchers and tax

credit scholarships. so we'll continue the levels of support and opposition. we see that the support is a majority across the board. and 62% are supporting esas. 61% of the total sample 00:20:44 -- total sample supports vouchers. 60% support tax credit scholarships and 53% are still supporting charter schools. about one-third opposed to vouchers, 29% opposed to tax-credit scholarships. 28% esas, 27% opposed to charter schools. >> in the survey because there may be some folks that aren't familiar with some of the terms like esa, tax-credit vouchers, et cetera. for the survey respondents, you would explain what it was? >> that's right. >> those who didn't know. >> right. we do define and give context for each of these school choice policies. we do have a paired set of questions for charters and vouchers because these policies have been around a little

longer. we ask a paired set of questions. one asking, based on what you know or have heard from others what do you think of charter schools or school vouchers. so getting a raw sense. those numbers which are not reflected on this chart here but still pluralities that support charter schools and vouchers without us giving information and with the definition, these numbers rise up. we took the same approach with the common core questions later in the survey. if we look at the margins, and it looks like the alignment has gotten off here. the margins are high across the board where the esas have the largest margin between the positive and negative responses.

plus 28 for vouchers and plus 26 for charter schools. the strongest held views, plus 16 for esas. low is plus 10 points for charter schools. here's some trend lines for the question on vouchers. and we see that there's been an uptick in the support over the last four years from vouchers from 46% to 56%. also an up tick in the opposition to vouchers from 28% to 33%. but one interesting -- and we've noted this on an earlier chart. a strongly positive view on vouchers matching the combined negative view on vouchers. 34% favor vouchers. 33% strongly oppose vouchers. here's a trend line that looks different for education savings accounts. it looks like the line wiggling a little bit.

this program is very new to a lot of people and a lot of the folks are probably being exposed to this consupportcept for the first time and we're providing them definition. 56% of the public supported esas. this year 62%. last year 34% opposed esas. this year 28%. i'd expect as we continue in future years, i expect this to wiggle. it's going to take some time for education savings accounts to diffuse in terms of understanding. to go through demographic findings. the two subgroups that are the relatively speaking the most likely to oppose school choice and least likely to support school choice are seniors age 55 and older or democrats and leaning democrats.

that's pretty clear across the board. on the flip side, the subgroups most lookly to support school choice would be your school parents, low-income earners, young adults and republicans and leaning republicans. so on our voucher question we saw that sub urbanites were more supportive than urbannites when it came to school vouchers. for somebody to do this for a little while. it's a curious finding where the conventional wisdom in school politics is urbanits are more supportive. we'll see if that olds up next year. republicans and independents are aligning and they do align on charter schools, vouchers, tax credit scholarships. six showing significantly higher

numbers. independents and democrats are also supporting esas about the same level and no significant differences on that type of school policy. when it comes to state rnt intervention in low-performing schools, another interesting democrats were more likely to cite school choice as a useful action to families in that situation where state intervenes in a low performing school. more likely than republicans to point to school choice. so we'll finish up talking about common core, standardized testing and state intervention in schools. we've been asking about common core for the last two years now. and essentially in a total sample, the national sample, the results are unchanged. roughly 50% support common core with some definition, with some context. 40% are opposed to common core.

school parents, it's a little bit murkier. we see 47% saying they support common core. and just under 47% saying that they oppose common core. it's about break even on the positive and opposed amongst school parents. then we asked some questions about standardized testing. for both the national sample and the subgroup of school parents weave seen an up tick in those who say the time spent on standardized testing is too high. if you look at those red bars, red chunks on those bars we see that last year the general public said 36% of the general public said time spent on standardized testing was too high. now it's 42%. that's gone up six points. among school parents it's gone up a little bit from 44% last year to 47% this year saying it's too high.

and that's more than twice the other end of the spectrum saying time spent is too low on standardized testing. and then finally this question about state intervention and low performing schools. give a rating on a scale 1 to 5 on how useful a certain action would be when a state intervene into a low-performing school. we're seeing this across states where there are state takeovers that have all sorts of mechanisms and ways of implementation and parent trigger-type policies emerge especially on the west coast. so when we ask this question 41%, the largest proportion, said supplying a voucher or scholarship or esa would be a useful action to affected

families and students. and then compare that to those -- just a quarter saying converting district schools to charters would be useful. 25% said replacing school staff, dismissing school staff and leadership would be useful. and then one out of five said closing the school would be useful. just to review some specific findings. there has been an increase in support of esas. there's been a drop in support for charter schools from 61% to 53%. again, the opposition has not grown. what we've seen, some of our panelists might have some insights into this and some comments. there's more, those who were saying they supported charter schools last year moving into the don't know category and unsure category. that alone, it's odd to report on don't know responses, but that was an interesting finding.

i'm not sure what to make of it. as i mentioned a couple minutes ago, when the state intervenes in a low-performing school, the largest proportion saying a particular action would work would be supplying students with vouchers, scholarships, esas. 41% gave that response. public opinion on common core remains mixed. margins are positive. the intensity is in the other direction going negative. that's in stark contrast to the choice questions. large positive margins. also mild to moderate positive intensities. 4 out of 10 respondents said the amount of time spent on testing was too high and that's in the national sample. and that proportion is higher among school parents. 47% say that. almost 4 out of 5, 77%, give a fair or poor rating to the federal government when it comes

to k-12 education matters. and that's something to think about as reauthorizationed start to be discussed over the next month. with that, i'll just say, thank you very much. [applause] >> now for our respondents. i think we'll just go right down the line. i've asked our panel to remind them brevity is the soul of wit. to max kind of five minutes of your quick responses, what struck you first. first off, kara kerwin, the president of the center for education reform. ms. kerwin: thank you. great results. one observation i have, and you were talking about this before but i look at the charter school question and the decrease in support. i would have one observation for the group to possibly throw out

and consider. we have seen a lot of activity in our statehouses across the country going after esas, trying to get voucher programs passed. and we've seen on the other side in chartering, it's mostly either to roll back charters overregulate them or really little or no progress. still eight states without charter school laws. there was a long time ago, charter schools were sort of the only thing taking off. now that we have our elected officials boldly trying to expand options, i wonder if the public has more knowledge because there's more talk about it than the charter. and one thing i would also suggest is that a lot of families don't even know they are in a charter school, especially if they are in a state where only local districts can authorize a charter school.

a lot of families don't know they are in a school choice or that it's something different. only a couple of observations i might throw out there. host: thank you. next up we have gerard robinson. just recently announced gerard will be joining us at aei as a resident fellow. before that he's had a couple other nice gigs. he was the secretary of education for the commonwealth of virginia, commissioner for the state of florida, president of the black alliance for educational options. if anybody would have a view on some of these findings it would be you. mr. robinson: thank you, mike and paul. education matters to america because education matters to states. and it matters to states because right now 41 of our states have education as its number one line item. when a governor or state chief and state leaders are looking at a knowledge, education matters. number one, there's great

dissatisfaction. that doesn't cheer me up as a school choice guy. it makes me wonder where we're going as a nation. the majority of our children in public education. we've got to make it work. when democrats, republicans, urban, suburban, leaning forward, lower income, high or income, over 50% agree in each category that it's not going in the right direction, that should be a wake-up call we need to do the right thing. the second takeaway, 84% have their kids in public schools. look at vouchers, charters education savings accounts, even those in the public sector want options. i don't see it as an anti-public school option. i see it as an opportunity to diversify how we deliver education to our children. by doing that we'll be a stronger nation. i think those numbers point in the right direction. host: and our final panelist, and after their initial remarks

we'll make this a bit more free free-wheeling discussion. wee have matt chingos who is from the brookings institution and director of the brown center on education policy. mr. chingos: i first want to justice say say surveys are really important and it's great that paul and his colleagues at the center for educational choice do them. there's also educational surveys. it is important we have all of them. on one hand without them all we have to go on are anecdotes. if these surveys weren't done every year then we'd have to go the new york times and talk about how we talked to some urban parents and they are real upset about standardized testing. it's real great we have them. i like this focus on school choice and it delves deeping into that than some of the other educational choice surveys.

the choice focus is largely on charters and vouchers and newer voucher-like policies like esas and tax-credit scholarship programs. makes sense in some respects because the survey results show parents want private schools more than they are getting them. 41% choose private school for their children if the sky was the limit. but only 9% choose that option. it sets up a political conundrum. on one hand, you see majority support for all these choice programs. whenever anyone tries to do one they get passed once in a while. but it's politically very controversial. not to say we should give up on them. one area i'd like to see some of the survey work go is to probe more deeply on choice among public schools. 84% of children in this country are attending public schools. so i think the kinds of questions and things you can learn more about are, do parents

have enough choices? do these 41% who are saying they want a private school, and most of them could actually get a private school, because they are thinking of the traditional public school option as a fixed , as a given option for them or would they be interested in it was in a neighborhood they can't afford to live but they see as a good public school where they'd like to send their child. do these parents understand their choices or do they live in a place where the choice architecture is so hopelessly complicated that they don't know they have options but they don't understand the details of how to make it happen? do they find they have enough information to make informed choices? it's one of my hobby horses, the choice conversation often focuses largely on charters, vouchers, voucher-like policies. those are important, worth figuring out how to get them right.

there's this whole other area that doesn't get enough attention and work like this could really add value to it in the future. host: thank you. maybe the first question i'll kick to all of you, what was -- in going through the mindings here, what was the finding that surprised you the most? paul, we'll start with you. you conducted the survey. that will buy time for the rest of you. the finding that surprised you the most. mr. diperna: that's a good question. i covered it in one of the slides where some of the differences based on where respondents lived. whether that's the difference between suburbanites and urbanites. that is going against conventional wisdom of school choice. and then the question about state intervention and low performing schools and we saw democrats citing school choice

as a useful remedy at a higher proportion than republicans. some of those political differences, which persisted not just on the choice items but on many of the items. and that's maybe the last point i would make. i am a let's come together type of guy, and i think it's important to build bridges across the aisle. we do see differences, significant differences between republicans and democrats on a lot of these issues. that's just a reality we have to confront and face with both sides. mr. mcshane: kara, most surprising finding? ms. kerwin: so if we were thinking or from the parents' perspective or respondents who said they have school-age children, what's interesting is that despite the fact so many of them felt there was too much

testing and pressure on testing, there is almost a 50/50 split on the need for common core and then their valuing quality more or better education. but so, and it goes to the national debate that's going on now about testing, about common core and what parents actually value. but i wonder -- and some of those questions, paul, this is a question for you, when you were characterizing them into better education or quality, what -- were there just some -- is it -- does it just feel safer? mr. diperna: that's a great question. and we don't really define quality in that item. quality is one of those trigger words. it's going to be coded. usually it's better quality. higher quality. we just leave it to however the respondent takes that.

and we do code for things like safety, more structure discipline. and that actually, that is -- it was a little surprising those were fewer responses than i would have expected. mr. mcshane: gerard, most surprising finding. mr. robinson: democrats and republicans agreeing on something. one, that we need options and, second, that we don't like the way the country is going. so it's almost two here. i don't like it and i don't like which way we're going, yet i want to give options yet when you introduce bills you see democrats and republicans split. more democrats are starting to come on board but that's a big find. what scares me is how many people think we're going the wrong direction given the billions of dollars we invest. mr. mcshane: matt? mr. chingos: i was surprised by that statistic in my remarks.

the large number of people parents in particular, who are most interested in non-public options. 41% said they'd said their kid to a private school if they could make any choice as compared to 9% that do. it reminds me of this "new yorker" cartoon. it depicts two affluent mothers saying, i believe in the concept of public education. mr. mcshane: that table is very interesting as well. one of the other ones, a 3-1 home school split. three times as many want to home school their kids as opposed to actually doing. so that's a really interesting one. paul, you did some sort of trend line. for the panel in general that observed these numbers over time, a lot of what paul presented were pretty stable numbers. we see roughly the same numbers over time.

of the stuff you presented, this i understand is going beyond what the survey says, so i'm asking you to conjecture. this is a safe place for conjecture. but of those numbers you looked at, did you see some that said these have the potential for moving or some of these are baked in? 60-30 for vouchers? 50/50 for charter schools or do you see these things moving around? kara, maybe start with you. ms. kerwin: we've done -- paul knows this, too. we've done some similar surveying. when you explain what charter schools are to paurntrents or -- parents or families, we find 72% support them. you've done polls about parent choice. instead of saying the word vouchers. i think word choice is important. we know an overwhelming majority of americans appreciate school

choice, whether they are public, private, charter, red, green yellow. they like making choices. that's what your survey is finding. as we see more and more of these programs take off, it is sort of like to know them is to love them. when someone sees something that works for them, you'll see increases. if we had more access to those vouchers, or if there was more of a population in charter schools. i think you'd see growth in those numbers and types of support. when you know something about something, you are more inclined to support it. mr. robinson: i see a continuing increase in charter schools enrollment in urban areas where you fund some of the most challenged populations looking for best options. i see esa growing than some of the other options.

for one reason. it benefits me quickly and puts resources in my hand to get services within this traditional system and look for services outside. that's important. traditional vouchers where they are being tested or not, will continue to grow. and for me, in terms of language, parental choice as we know will continue to expand itself. charters and esas are new articulations of it. on the private side, i think es asare really going to shore up. mr. chingos: i said nice things about surveys. maybe i'll beat up on surveys a little bit. it's important to be candid about the limitations of any kind of survey as i'm sure paul is aware. the way you ask these questions really matters. we did some experiments. you want to give people

information that can change their opinion. the way you ask the question frame the question, order the questions can really matter. you are asking people a bunch of detailed questions about things we all think a lot about but most people don't think a whole lot about. that's how you get some of these sensitivities. most people don't know a whole lot about any given policy area. for example, i once heard folks did a survey of americans and asked them whether they prefer $1,000 tax deduction or $1,000 tax credit. obviously the tax credit is worth more because you get $1000. the deduction reduces your taxable income. the majority said they would rather get the deduction. so how do you go from republicans, democrats holding hands on the survey saying we support school choice to a more polarized political debate, when vouchers get proposed?

you're going from this sterile environment of someone talking on the phone or doing a computer survey to a more politicized environment where people are updating their believes and saying i believe in this concept of choice when asked the question, but the party i am in the legion to tells me this is terrible. maybe we shouldn't read too much into any particular survey about what the future portends. but i do think just to restate one of gerard's points that rebranding different things can help. vouchers have a troubled history. if you can take what's basically a voucher program and rebrand it as a tax scholarship program you can get the same thing but in a politically palatable way. mr. mcshane: i think this is available on everybody's fact sheet. in the lower left-hand column

, when you broke out those schooling preferences. i used to be a high school teacher. now i am seeing everyone rifling through their back. looking at those school types and the reasons people chose those school types. something that was really interesting to me. that their ideal school type is a regular public school, they said they value diversity, variety, association, peers. for those who valued a private school, the highest were better education, individual attention, same true for charter schools and home schools. when i respond to that, and i'd like to hear your thoughts on this, it makes me question a lot of our, the horse race narrative or whatever when we talk about private schools versus charter schools or public schools. what are the test scores of kids in charter schools or public schools? who is doing better?

who is doing worse? when i look at this, these choices might be driven by things other than parents saying i want the school that can maximize reading and math scores. that there are complex reasons parents choose these things. as we have some mixed positions up on the panel. how do you react to those findings? it seems like the motivations of families for the different school sector are different from one another. you want to tackle that one first? mr. robinson: when you talk to parents, as president of the black alliance of educational options, we support all the options, including those within the traditional public school system. when we talked to parents as to why they decided to move from traditional school to charter school or take a voucher sometimes safety was a factor. smaller classrooms may have been something to drive them in that direction.

sometimes it was a religious focus in the school which gave an advantage to the private school over the public. education made a difference as well. there are gradations of whether education is first or second but there are a number of areas or reasons people choose schools other than academics. in looking at this, it doesn't surprise me, the diversity and variety. i'd like to see that fleshed out. diversity is broader. it's income and otherwise. i'd like to see that. mr. mcshane: paul, it seemed like you wanted to jump in. mr. diperna: just to piggyback on what you were saying. this was somewhat of a surprising finding. we do state polling as well. a handful of state surveys every year. we've broken this out in other states. even state by state it's different. the type of responses you get and how they list out under different school types. so if researchers always like to

look for reasons and for further research and exploration. this item in our survey suggested and it's very hard to come up with any concrete conclusions. but it does maybe set the table for further survey work or other types of research, looking into, are there different cultures? surrounding regular public district traditional schools compared to private school culture, charter school culture. are there any real significant differences and reasons for choosing those types of schools. that does lend out for maybe some future research. mr. mcshane: and, matt, this is interesting. the point you brought up is well taken. investment and time to be taken into the choice architecture. infrastructure. information to support parents. but it also begs the question, are we still a step or two away from there if we don't know what

parents are necessarily looking for? we don't know what information to tell them? do you have any thoughts on maybe how this could guide other researchers to understand better the parental decision-making process so that we can develop that architecture and better inform parents? mr. chingos: the variation within each of these can be more interesting than the average. the average is an interesting starting point but thinking of where future work could go. i would guess that parents who say, you know, who either chose a private school or didn't but wanted to, i think they could have a lot of different reasons. you could imagine an affluent family that has access to a pretty good public school. they were more affluent and could send their kids to the independent school, the very expensive private school in their town. a lower income family couldn't be happy with the public school option and it's the catholic

school down the street they want to have access to. i think the variation could help us learn more about what considerations are for different families. mr. mcshane: great. i have one or two more questions. again, those of you following along at home or in the audience, #schoolinginamerica survey. a ton of people are already tweeting. feel free if you have questions or want to add your thoughts to the conversation, feel free. my kind of last step before we open it up is, obviously, any time polling happens in washington, d.c., people want to know the broader electoral implications of what we found. so, one, obviously the common core, there's a big wide republican primary taking place right now. there are varying opinions on the common core within that group of people. how do you see these numbers reflecting or having an impact on potential candidates?

mr. diperna: i think that -- so we do ask at the end of the survey, we did ask some questions that had electoral implications on whether they were more or less likely to support a candidate who supported vouchers or esas or common core. and, frankly, more than half said it didn't really make a difference. of the half of the total population that we surveyed there was substantial marketing -- margin more likely to vote for a pro-esa or pro voucher candidate. and then common core, more likely to -- less likely to vote for a pro-common core candidate than they were for -- than more likely to vote for that candidate.

i think, and we mentioned this before. there are relative differences. there's majority support among republicans, democrats and independents on these choice items, but there are relative differences that are significant. that maybe speak to some of that intensity. i was just reading today, this morning an article by charlie cook of the cook political report. he was talking about what republicans need to do in order to move forward. this is a response in the last week or so. the high profile supreme court decisions. and we see that young adults are maybe the most supportive of these different types of choice policies that we're asking about. low-income earners are significantly positive on all these items. so these are nontraditional. at least what's being projected out in the media.

the public perception is that these are not your traditional republican constituencies, but we're seeing these groups in our survey time and time again on questions about charters or vouchers or esas. and on the democrat side, the majority support of pluralitysupport for these items, there seems to be a disconnect between your average democrat and your it leads and those who are in leadership positions and positions they are taking, that could have implications moving forward. >> this would be again, your point that 41% -- 41 states, education is their largest budget item but one of the topline findings of education is a priority is saying that this

country trails behind a lot of other stuff. i wonder if you might speak to the state versus national. maybe some of these issues have greater salience at state levels and the national levels. speaker: if i were to talk to them including third-party candidates for this libertarian constitution or otherwise, more than 50% of the people are telling you that our public education system is going in the wrong direction, then you need a strong public school message. it is the right thing to do since the majority of our kids are in the public sector but here is the divide. that is important but you cannot support a school choice option and leaves the public schools untapped. for there, you need to do a great job of making sure states have the right to run schools where the -- the way they should. there should not be a over heavy

regulatory environment that stifles innovation at the local level. well-meaning programs once they get to the department of education and the state and trickles down to the lower levels -- local levels, we strangle too much innovation. there is a divide between state and federal. i would say if the parents, both democrats and republicans are telling us they want options the open options, this will be a challenge for the democrats with over 130 million dollars invested between 1990 and 2014 from nea. teythey have a fine line to walk. some of our people are saying they want sitting outside -- something outside the public school system. for me, i would say state first national conversation but let states do what they need to do. >> we will open it up to the

crowd. i may start with the twitter question. this question was perfectly in matt's will house. you have done some of the best research on this question. in talking about standardized testing a question from twitter was, in the survey and the amount of time and the amount of money. the question was phrased, how much money could be saved by eliminating standardized tests and root -- replacing them with smaller, pragmatic competency tests. maybe you could speak to your look into the broader cost of -- the broader cost. matt: i did a study looking at how much states were spending. it comes out to pending on how you crunch the numbers $30 a kid. i ran some tests and relations

how much would you save? across the country looks like a big month -- number. that number has spread across the system. it comes out to textbook for kid. and reducing class size but .1 students. given the emphasis that policymakers are putting on standardized test and how those results are used, i think $30 a kid is a small price to pay. a lot of educators and parents rightly are worried. you ought to think about not spending too much but too little. host: maybe we will take a question from the audience. i would like to share with you we have two rules.

if you would be so kind to identify yourself and be so quiet -- kind as to ask question. -- as k a question. i wanted to talk to how matt was saying some of these educational issues, it gets lost during that political movement. what direction what activists in your company's organizations can focus on some of the localities. i am concerned that when we're looking at the state level especially not at the federal level, if you do not have the buy-in from the school board you will not have i and from the parents and that is where the power is. do we see any movement towards that, through training parents or training, getting good people

on? >> gerard, i know you will have something to share with this as well. kara: the problem have been -- has been that we have to suffice -- disenfranchised parents. we have made it into meeting for them to approach principles -- principals. informing parents about what your school district might offer, welcome them to go to things, go to parent events so you get to know them and what their needs are. there has to be some sort of both ways you've got to be looking at. how can we reach out to parents and informing them of their options are potential options and how can we be listening to the more?

if more local school districts to that, we might have a different result. it is when we see parents do -- make choices that are far more active. we have seen communities and people who say they do not know how to choose schools. they know how to choose schools really well. if we empower them and make this choices and help educate the community about their choices and what is going on, i think we will have a better result. >> i agree. >> i agree. >> outstanding. unanimity. here in the front. >> i wanted to talk to you about educating parents. i have been talking to the suburban moms. basically, they hear a rumor and it gets carried away like the

charter schools are supported by the people who support for profit prisons. all of a sudden you hear these people talking about how they are going to have these schools that will have the same structure as the prison and that is why they will go down stream. then you have the anti-common core people. people who have dyslexia have a problem with common core. there is no one definition of what common core is because no one seems to get it in the suburban role. what is the definition of charter versus schools' choice? my daughter moved to illinois -- how do you have a national standard and have this debate because people do relocate. if they relocate from the south to the north. >> this is about the common core

standards or information about schools in general? >> you cannot talk until you have a definition. >> how do we -- inform the public and informing the public debate, standardizing definitions of what this is one of charter school is or this is what the common core is. >> i would say it is hard to educate people about we think about education is our pet issue. i think about non-education areas and how hard it would be to educate me if i was not just it, if someone was trying to rein the information down. that can often work against the effort of trying to educate people. a political scientist friend of mine did the study of attitudes about -- and knowledge about the

common core. you would think all the public attention it is getting, people would be more informed about it. we ask people to respond to factual questions, they are more likely to get them wrong. the political polarization had pushed people away from knowing the simple facts about things. it is kind of a depressing response. >> during our increasingly polarized times. when i hear you mentioned for profit prisons, charter schools, challenges with definition is not something that is endemic just to public education. about the buy american campaign. that is something that is a broad heart. what we need in america is not a common core conversation, but a conversation about a common cord.

one that links us in time to the principles that made this country great. and what role can education play sustaining the economic and social welfare of this nation? a conversation gets is on the same page to say what do i think is important and we can maneuver from there. i guess from the civil society standpoint we would have a higher conversation [indiscernible] >> may be go to another twitter question. there were comments that were related to the finding poll that the age breakdown, opponents to school choice can't -- 10 to's -- tend to skew old. i am interested in why we think that is. kara: the people who are -- do not want change are older.

or you -- you have teachers who are tenured and have not -- they do not want change. they try to maybe enter the teaching profession and found it to be very hostile or they have been in schools themselves and experience it. millennial's understand freedom a lot more. those are conjuring factors. you have the status quo that will fight for no change in the young people who want change. >> you have a dependent population, those 65 and over. they tend to vote a lot and they will vote their interests and they want to make sure that we are not spending enormous amounts of money on one thing that will not support whether -- what they need whether it is support for medicaid or other educational issues. for me, it is also, i am older

i need to protect this versus the younger generation. she can be more liberal about her ideas. then she will become much more conservative area -- conservative. >> may be a question from the audience. >> i work at the nea. i went to bring the attention to the sample size of 1000 and mentioned that the subset of parents was a quarter. we are talking about 250 people who are involved in making choices that are about their students. and what mr. robinson still said about people who are not

necessarily in that democratic -- demographic area they may not have all the correct information. that is the comment. and to mr. robinson and mr. chingos. what is the impact provided everyone can have choice about the school they send their child to on education and the second part is if there is an expanded ability to choose within public education, what does that look like? >> with all the states we have with charter schools, public school students remain the majority. in the next decade they will probably remain the same. you have to make the math easy with 50 million. you have k-12 students now. if you -- you see more students

leave. what is more important to me in terms of impact and education is what and how we deliver education. some parents said i have enough money to pay for a private school at a very elite lace in the city. but i put my kid in public school because i believe in the mission and it is close. there is a transportation factor so, for me, i do not see public education being destroyed by choice. this is how we deliver options to a diverse school of americans. >> if we say we are going to give a $10,000 voucher for the parent to show up at 10:30 a.m. on tuesday at the apostolic fly, that will attract a very different group of parents and have a very different impact than a different kind of choice program like the one we have here in d.c. where you go through a lottery.

the main drawback to that system is there is still a default school which is the school in the area where you can afford to buy or rent real estate. you can imagine a version of that that broke down those areas and provided to all families the choices that only affluent families enjoyed through their ability to choose where to live. providing that choice on its own is not enough. my brookings colleague russ whitehurst has done work on how this functions in different districts. it matters, do you provide accurate and relevant information to parents to help them make informed choices, do

you have a system that is accessible to everyone and not just for people who show up on tuesday at 10:30 a.m. do you cover transportation costs or is it for parents who can figure out transportation and so on and so forth area -- so forth. it looks like it was -- it varies a lot. we do have some clear ideas about what it got to look like which is going to determine the effect it has on the kids who make that choices in the system. we have lacked friday, we see hundreds of thousands of people standing in line -- when we have lacked friday, we see hundreds of thousands of people standing in line. maybe people would not wait. when we give parents choice and we see thousands of people lining up and taking advantage they want something different and now they have an option to do so. if you made it every day we know this internally, thousands of seats in states that are

still not filled area they are available. people qualify. they have not had it. there is some more work we have to do. just because it is available does not mean everyone will jump at it. kara: we have seen that really take off where the parent has the ability to choose, we have seen our traditional public schools improved medically, do things to attract parents treating them as consumers. i would not say it is about abolishing or dismantling public education. it is helping to create a more thriving market for all sorts of schools to be viable options so that you do not have this crappy school that you are assigned to. that all of your options are better because of it. >> one question from twitter. people are digging into the report itself which is awesome. about the urban=-rural split.

there was a suburban-urban split but there are a lot of rural folks who are not fans of education savings accounts vouchers. even though we might think of them in a republican constituency that they might do that. gerard is nodding so we will let him go first. gerard: it is a good question. this goes back to the earlier what were some surprising findings and we did see in small town and rural areas and we ask how where -- when you describe where you live and there was substantial support among rural and small-town americans that had significantly higher support for vouchers compared to urban folks and that is another finding that goes against conventional wisdom. the thing -- i did not pull out rural respondents as much because the sample size is a

little bit smaller than those who were in the urban pull of respondents -- pool of respondents. the margin of error is higher. there were 250 school parents in the survey. much science has gone into survey design so they can truly reflect the population that you are trying to evaluate, and so through randomization and what they call random digit dialing and with some weighting after the fieldwork which is a standard approach to correcting for demographic discrepancies we can get an accurate reflection of school parents within a margin of error. even with surveying 250 folks in our survey. >> we have -- that is the witching hour so can we have a

round of applause? this will be on youtube tomorrow. it was great having you. >> presidential candidate and former texas governor rick perry outlined his economic plan at the press club tomorrow in washington at 1 p.m. eastern. it is live on c-span. tomorrow afternoon, president obama speaks about the economy at the university of wisconsin at la crosse, live on c-span at 2:20 p.m. eastern. >> lucy hayes was the first first lady to earn a college degree and during the civil war, soldiers serving under her husband called her the mother of the regiment. she influenced her husband rutherford b hayes to switch to an anti-slavery power -- party.

lucy hayes, this sunday night at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span's original series, "first ladies influence and image." examines a -- examining their influence on the presidency on american history tv on c-span 3. >> like many of us, first families take vacation time and like presidents and first ladies a good rate can be the perfect companion for your summer journeys. what that her book than one that peers inside the personal life of every first lady in american history? "first ladies,"'s stories -- historians on the women who survived the scrutiny of the white house. a great summertime read available from public affairs is a hardcover or an e-book through your favorite store or online bookseller.

>> president obama announced today that the u.s. and cuba will restored to the medic ties and open embassies in each other's capitals. the two countries cut diplomatic ties in 1961. today's announcement was in the white house rose garden. president obama: good morning, everybody. please have a seat. more than 54 years ago near the height of the cold war, the u.s. closed its embassy in havana. today, i can announce that the u.s. has agreed to formally reestablish diplomatic relations with the republic of cuba. and reopen embassies in our respective countries. this is a historic step forward in our efforts to normalize relations with the cuban government and people and begin a new chapter with our neighbors in the americas. when the u.s. shattered our embassy in 1961 i do not think

anyone expected it would be more than half a century before it reopened. after all, our nations are separated by 90 miles and there are deep anza family and friendship between our people. but there have been very real, profound differences between our governments and sometimes we allow ourselves to be trapped by a certain way of doing things. for the u.s., that meant clinging to a policy that was not working. instead of supporting democracy and opportunity for the cuban people, efforts to isolate cuba despite good intentions had the opposite effect. cementing the status quo and isolating the u.s. from our neighbors in this hemisphere. the progress that we mark is another demonstration we do not have to be imprisoned by the press -- the past. when something is not working we can and will change. last december i announced that a u.s. and cuba decided to take steps to read normalize our relationships. as part of that effort we directed our teams to renegotiate the establishment of

embassies. since then, our state department has worked hard with their cuban counterparts to achieve that goal. later this summer, secretary kerry will travel to havana formally to probably raise the american flag over our embassy once more. this is not merely symbolic. with this change, we will be able to substantially increase our contact with the cuban people. we will have more personnel and our embassy and are different mats will have the ability to engage more broadly across the island. that will include the cuban government, civil society and ordinary cubans who are reaching for a better life. on issues of common interest like counterterrorism, disaster response, and development, we will find new ways to cooperate with cuba. i have been clear that we will also continue to have some very serious differences. that will include america's enduring support for universal values like freedom of speech and assembly, and the ability to

access information. we will not hesitate to speak out when we see actions that contradict those values. however, i strongly believe that the best way for america to support our values is through engagement. that is why we have already taken steps to allow for greater travel, people to people and commercial ties between the u.s. and cuba and we will continue to do so going forward. since december we have seen in our miss enthusiasm for this new approach. leaders across the americas have expressed support for our change in policy. you heard that expressed by president dilma rousseff of brazil yesterday. public opinion surveys show broad support for this engagement. one cuban said, "i have prepared for this all my life." another said that this is like a shot of oxygen. one cuban teacher put it simply. "we are neighbors, now we can be friends. here in the united states, we

have seen that same enthusiasm. there are americans who want to travel and american it businesses who want to invest in cuba. american colleges and universities want to partner with cuba. above all americans who want to get to know their neighbors to the south and through that engagement we can help the cuban people improve their lives. one cuban american look forward to reuniting emily's and opening -- families and opening lines of communications. another put it bluntly. "you cannot hold the future of cuba hostage to what happened in the past turco this is what this is about. a choice between the future in the past. americans and cubans are like the -- alike are ready to move forward. i believe it is time for congress to do the same. i've called on congress to take steps to lift the embargo. we have seen members from both parties begin that work. why should washington stand in the way of our own people? there are those who want to turn

back the clock and double down on a policy of isolation but it is long past time forced to realize this approach does not work. it has not worked for 50 years. it shuts america out of cuba's future and it makes life worse for the cuban people. i would ask congress to listen to the cuban people. listen to the american people. listen to the words of a problem -- a proud cuban-american, carlos gutierrez who recently came out against the policy of the past saying, i wonder if the cuban to have to stand in line for the most basic necessities for hours in the hot havana son feel that this approach is help to them. no one expect's cuba to be transformed overnight. i believe that american engagement is the best way to advance our interests and support for democracy and human rights. time and again, america has demonstrated that part of our leadership in the world is our capacity to change. it is what inspires the world to reach for something better. a year ago it might have seen

impossible that the u.s. would once again be raising our flag the stars & stripes over and embassy in havana. this is what change looks like. in january of 1961 m a the year i was born, when president eisenhower announced of the termination of our relations with cuba he said, "it is my hope and my conviction that it is in the not-too-distant future it will be possible for the historic friendship between us once again to find its reflection in normal relations of every sort." well, it took a while, but i believe that time has come. and a better future lies ahead. thank you very much and i want to thank some of my team who worked diligently to make this happen. they are here. they do not always getting knowledged. we are really proud of them. good work. reporter: when do you go to cuba?

>> tonight on c-span, interviews with congress's newest numbers. republican elise stefanik of new york. texas republican john ratliff. here are the first of four interviews with freshman members of congress. representative stefanik: represents new york's 21st district. this is 25 minutes. representative elise ste