recorded portion i'd take a lives of the heritage foundation washington, d.c. for a conversation on alternatives to the public school system. introductions now underway. live coverage on c-span. recently -- researches and writes on federal education issues focusing on two critical reducing the. federal role in education and empowering families with school choice. her commentary, research, and op-ed's have it peer-to-peer is magazines including the washington times, the atlantic, time, and newsweek. she has spoken on education reform issues across the country as well as internationally. she holds her bachelor syrian politics from holland and a masters in teaching and four-legged education from the universe -- foreign-language education from the university of virginia. please welcome me and joining lindsey burke. ms burke: thank you everyone for

being here today. today would've r3rd milton friedman's 10 birthday. he is considered the father of the modern day school choice movement. and what a movement it has become. today, 59 private school choice programs operate in 28 states and right here in the district of columbia. these options, whether vouchers, tuition tax credit scholarship programs, or education savings accounts which we are here to discuss today provide families the opportunity to choose schools and learning options that meet their child's individual and unique learning needs. instead of being assigned to a school based on where their parents live, these models of school choice free people and children from assignment by zip

co policies that bind them to a neighborhoodde. as friedman said, school choice ensures children are free to choose and 1955, he first outlined his concept of free school vouchers. in his essay friedman posited government administers the schools is neither required by the financing of education nor justifiable in its own right in a predominantly free enterprise society. in other words friedman argued that we should separate the financing of education from the delivery of services. that is publicly fund but parentally choose where a child attends school. he decided -- he separated the idea education for the delivery of services through school vouchers, a set amount of dollars provided to amylase

incentive to school districts. enabling family to choose a school that met their children's unique needs. milwaukee became the first city to implement his ideas and in 1991 established the milwaukee rental choice program -- parental choice program. the first large-scale k12 policy in the country. he did not stop tinkering with this idea of school vouchers when it happened. in an interview with the journal education next in 2003 when he was 90 years old he first offered up the idea of the partial voucher. he said one of let them spend part of a voucher for math in one place in for english or science another. why should schooling have to be in one building. why can't a student take some lessons at home, especially now the availability of the internet. he was incredible he forward thinking. that brings us to the

idea of the education savings which is brought his idea the partial voucher to life. we will hear a lot today about how they work. education savings accounts was allowed heirs to direct every single dollar of their child's education to not just a single private school choice but to multiple services and products . representing the next generation of school choice. esa's are a representation of that model he put forward in 1955 and one of the most promising ways forward for school choice. before and she's our panelists i should note it is ironic that after today's events to honor milton friedman who popularized the phrase "there is no system is a free lunch." there will actually be a free lunch in the lobby. [laughter] jason frederick is a policy analyst with the cato institute.

he previously served as a legislator in the new hampshire house of representatives and was an education policy research fellow at the josiah bartlett he hasfor other policy. published numerous studies on education choice programs with organizations such as the friedman foundation for educational choice, the pioneer institute, the caesar rodney institute, and is widely published in print and online media. he received his masters in public policy for the john f. kennedy school of government at harvard university. jonathan butcher surrogates education director for the goldwater institute. his work as appeared in journals such as education next and the georgetown journal of law and public policy. his commentary has appeared nationally in places such as real clear policy, national andnal, townhall.com, newspapers across the country. he is a member of the arizona department of education steering

committee for the empowerment he isrship program. and also a senior fellow at the beacon center of tennessee. he previously studied education policy the department of education reform at the university of arkansas and worked with the school choice dem attrition project, the research team that evaluated dr. to voucher programs in washington dc and in milwaukee. prior to that he studied education and family policy here the heritage foundation. he holds a ba in english from furman university and an ma in economics from the diversity of arkansas. last, tim keller who serves of the institute for arizona office managing attorney. he joined as a staff attorney in 2001 and but a good school choice, economic liberty, and other constitutional cases and state in federal court. he led the institute's defense of arizona's tax credit program and arizona

-- which culminated in a united states supreme court victory. he also successfully defended and perhapsprogram. was the most interesting part of his bio, in addition to defending educational choice programs and arizona and nationwide, tim has helped knock down barrier for entrepreneurship on behalf of many hard-working individuals including eyebrow fetters in arizona, african hair raters, florists in louisiana. and among these victories was his work on behalf of christian health, a teenager from tempe, arizona who wanted to help senior citizens proof their homes. an agency and demanded the young doctor for newer secure and exterminate his license. a very interesting bio. he received his

law degree from arizona state university and has a degree in economics from a a few -- afu. please look to make enjoying -- in joining our panelists. >> thank you for putting this event together. as i was driving er i wase in my ub speaking with a driver and asked what i was doing i said we were having a panel on the future of education. he said there are two ways to solve the problem of education in this country. i was interested in radio to say. he said there is the national way in the miraculous way. i asked what the natural way. he said the natural way is an angel the lord would come down and teaches exactly how we should create quality learning environment for every student at a reasonable cost. that is the natural way. was the miraculous way? of

reckless way is you will figure it out yourselves. [laughter] i first heard that from a university in receipt of arkansas -- university of arkansas. and highlights the challenges before us. one of the first places i think we should start is that the incentive structure. milton friedman and other economists talk about 40 for ways that we can spend money -- 4 different ways to spend money. you can spend your money or some and else's, and you can spend it on yourself or on someone else. when you were spending your own money you have whencentive to economize. you are spending money on yourself you have an incentive to maximize value you get for what you spend. the best structure is a system where you are spending your own money on yourself. that is where you're going to maximize the value and economize. unfortunately our

public school system in this spending. category 4 other people spending other people's money on other people. you have a weak incentive either to economize or to maximize value. we have seen that over the last four centuries -- four decades rather, the cost of k-12 in this chart shows the total cost of k-12 education from a student in kindergarten through high school over the yet we seetripled. that test scores have been absolutely flat over the same period. we are spending three times as much but we are not getting any more bang for our buck. part of this has to do with how much more we are spending on teachers and other staff. there has been a staffing surge in this chart for the

national center for educational statistics. it shows that we had about a doubling in the student population since 1950, yet the number of total school personnel has gone up by about 400%. teachers only 250%, but the number of nonteaching staff is increased by 700% over the same period when the number of students is only doubled. parents are not getting what they want. the public school system is crowding out other alternatives. this is a poll from the friedman foundation last year. they found that april formality of 40% of parents would send their children to a private school if they have the and another 11% would homeschool and 10% to charter. if you look at where the students are going, 83% a going to public schools. so that is

ideasmilton friedman's that he discussed about 60 years ago comes in. school vouchers. the idea would separate the financing of education for the actual provision of education. the government would ensure that every child had the access to a quality education but would not necessarily the ones that were running the system. going back to the forward is a spending money, -- 4 ways of spending money, now we have parents maximizing the value they will get that they're still using other people's money. they are's -- they don't have a strong incentive to economize. we see this with higher and values -- matchers -- vouchers notice pell grants. the tuition and fees of for a paste -- outpaced inflation over that period. the bennett hypothesis. school

cartoon, there was the public education system which is one-size-fits-all. than the school choice and to get a variety of options to different shirt is not as a the sum total of one's wardrobe, schooling is not the sum total of education. a voucher can only be used at another school. that is where friedman said, how do we know how education will develop? wise it sensible for a child get all the schooling in one building? why can't the student take some lessons at home, especially now with the availability of the internet? education savings accounts are --t idea. reviewed restricted bank accounts of parents can use for a wide friday of instances and future tenses. this does not get his quite all the way. ecv arrow

does not go all the way into the green box because the government is still putting a portion of the funds they would've spent at a public school into the account. parents are still spending other people's money to an extent. but now they are able to spend it more than one place. and they are able to save. if you get a $5,000 voucher, you can only spend that at a school and you have to spend the entire amount. a school would be foolish to charge less than $5,000 because if they're getting a $5,000 voucher they are leaving money on the table. here there is down repression on price because there is no floor. they can save it and use it in multiple places. this allows for the unbundling of the education system. what is it that is killing the newspaper so to speak? is not just the huffington post or the drudge report providing alternative news sources. there is google in yahoo! and people are turning to

those. things like match.com and eharmony are taking a bite out of their personals section. monster.com is taking a bite out of the job section. ebay is taking a bite of classified adds. the automotive section, the culture of an food section. these are all different players coming in and unbundling this whole bundle of services that the newspapers are providing. likewise, we have the same in education. jonathan butcher and i did a study on the education savings account program in arizona to see how they are actually using this program. 65% of the people in the survey were using the funds for traditional private school education. although a good number of them were also buying things like educational therapy. these raw all families with students with

special needs in the first year. but they were also -- we just lost power. they were using a whole bunch of services. educational therapy. ever using -- getting to the back? completelyble to customize the education for their kids. some of them are doing homeschooling. summer doing online learning. they were able to figure out what works best for their kids. we now have a question of how much we should regulate the system. essentially there is the taxicab cartel model. wethe uber have people that believe we are going to let them have choices but essentially he will have to any car you want as long

as it is yellow and it follows modelguidelines. the uber says will give freedom to drivers and we will allow the customer to have the ultimate say. accountability for rest thanthe customer. rather having a system of common core and a system of standardized testing where everyone has to meet the same standards, we should be moving in the direction where there are actually different forms of accountability. there are competing standards. there are competing school models and parents of the ability to choose among these different models and see what works best for them. it is a process of experimentation, evaluation, and evolution. extermination meeting that the schools are going to try different things. we do not know the one best way to provide education. assuming there is such a thing. we should have a system that allows a great amount of innovation and

diversity. and then we allow parents and -- the end-user to what -- evaluate works best for them. the evolution comes on there is a market response to that were the schools see where the parents are going and what they're looking for and they either are successful and extend the model. if they are not very successful, then the change what they are doing based on what is working and what parents and students are working for. that is the direction that i think we should be going and that is what education savings accounts allows us to do. it is a fundamental transformation on the system. thank every much. [applause] host: they are working on a backup. >> thank you lindsay and jason.

good afternoon everyone. my name is jonathan butcher and i'm education director at the goldwater institute headquartered in phoenix, arizona. it's a pleasure to be the first education savings accounts passed in arizona in 2011. it was right about that time that i got to know a couple of families. i got to know the family of kathy in low --vissar. i get to no limit where he and amanda and michael howard and their son nathan. i would like to introduce you to them in just a moment. kathy and her husband christo moved their family from one part of the valley in phoenix to another section. up to the northeast corner. as they looked to move and find a new school for jordan they saw they were going to negotiate with their school district to find

the best services for jordan. he has mild cerebral palsy and some other learning delays. in the school he was attending on the other side of phoenix they had a preschool in a kindergarten program that worked with his unique needs and were able to provide services that helped him make it through each day. when they moved to different area, the scottsdale area, the school district was not prepared or interested in providing the services that jordan needed every day to make it to the school day. kathy and christo tried to negotiate and discuss with the district for jordan needed but they cannot come to an agreement of how to provide a great education for jordan. fortunately for the vissar's this was the time arizona lawmakers enacted education savings accounts. they apply for jordan and they used their account first to send him to a private school that had a focus on helping children with special

needs. as jason was describing a moment ago, many of the families in that first year used their education savings account just for private school tuition or additional tutoring services or educational therapy. but what happened next is the most interesting part of the story. it was after that first year that kathy and christo decided they wanted some thing else for jordan. they took him out of school and they began paying for educationalors, therapy he was already receiving outside of the classroom, as well as additional services in the home for jordan. his school day looks like a combination of providers coming to the visitors s home to help him everyday. this is what suffocate -- separates the savings accounts of the other options available in the school system

today in arizona, nevada, tennessee, and mississippi, and florida. and this is why we are so excited about the potential that the account suffer families across united states. there is a video of kathy in jordan going to an educational therapist and paying for the service by taking out their education savings account card which looks much like a visa card that i know many of you probably have in your wallets right now. they swipe it across the little square at the top of the providers iphone and that is how the pay for. imagine compensated funding formulas we have in the states and from the federal government across the country today if our students anywhere could go and pay for a service unique to their needs with something as simple as that. let me talk for a moment about amanda and nathan howard. amanda and her husband michael tried early on, as any parent

would, to help their son nathan learn how to speak. they worked with their preschool program and the kindergarten program and they tried to help get david to come out of the shell. eventually they took it to a specialist to found he was on the autism spectrum. they found some specialists outside the classroom to help nathan day-to-day. and still they were not able to get nathan to reach this important milestone that summoning families look for with in the first year of the education savings account program and amanda and michael were some of the first to apply for an account for their son. it was after about six months of finding a school that was unique for children that were on the autism spectrum and some additional services outside the home for nathan that amanda was sitting on the couch, reading a book to nathan, when he pointed

to a picture on the page and said "what is that?" now it was amanda's turn to be speechless. this is the kind of turned we see in families that separate us from every thing else we in the traditional system or otherwise. to help every child of the chance at a great education. the last family is when mcmurray and her doctor children, alicia, you uria, and valerie. they the accounts after arizona expanded beyond children with special needs. lyn children weren's eligible because the children were adopted from the states foster care system which showed how the law had evolved over time. her family used in the counts -- accounts to pay for public school sources like

as your curricular activities at the school and a variety of tutoring and therapy services, just as the other students did. ynn and unique about l her family is that she is in my n inleft corner. that is ly alesia and that picture. and you have jordan on the tire swing their. what is unique about this situation is there using the account for public full services. they stretch beyond even what is offered in the private sector. we have talked -- anyway, i'm not sure which button. >> there is no button. >> on the next slide we have the slide -- ily. on the

please -- you can go to the next slide. as jason was talking about the amount of money we spend on education across the united states is staggering. he gave you some numbers about how weh we spend writ large. spend about $13,000 per student across the u.s. but taken on a big scale like aren was talking about, we right around $600 billion in state, local, and federal dollars around the u.s. it's hard to visualize what that means. let's look at it like this. how high would a pilot $1 million make -- $1 million make an thousand dollar bills if you howk them up. seven inches. high would a pile of $1 billion make in thousand dollars bills? 28 feet higher than the washington monument. suddenly

when we talk about $600 billion it takes on a whole new meaning. please. the graph that was just a with the map of united states, the short story that we don't compare well internationally. when you put united states, we are right around number 27 compared to when you look at mathar-old map scores -- scores. when you look at highly educated families were one college degree, that figure is right around the same. what that means is we actually don't really have two systems well the allete -- the highly educated students from private -- or somehow over here in the rest of the nation's over here. but we have is a system that when compared to other nations, regardless of where on the scale you look, the u.s. is still right there at about the bottom.

next please. would is the future of education look like? we're talking about education savings accounts. the state deposits public money into a private bank account that parents use to buy educational products and services for the children. next slide please. as i was explaining, these cards look much like the visa cards that many of you will have in there aret right now. five important issues that we talk about when we explain how state. we state to talk about eligibility, how to apply for an education savings account, what the award is, how and weount can be used, talk about with the audit

process is to make sure that families are using the counts for their intended purposes. i know youplease. cannot see what is on this chart. i have copies i would be glad to provide for anyone here and i can e-mail them to lindsay. the purpose is to expand or now five education savings account laws across united states. arizona was the first in 2011. florida passed it year14. and just this three states and i could the accounts. mississippi, tennessee, and nevada. what is important to note is that in a different areas i was just listing, they are all slightly different from state to state. what that means is that these states of taken an excellent idea about how to get every child a chance at a sizable education and adjusted it for the laws and regulations and the way that they do business in their state. they have taken the

time to make it something that will fit for the way that they had done education funding and even school choice programs in please.ate. next slide in 2013 i did a focus group study what we found are these two bars on the left color than the others. at the time, we went to look for ways and ideas on how to use their empowerment scholarship account, as it is called in arizona. many of them went to a doctor who message board made by parents in the message board could do was no prodding for parents to great this message board did it was something they created because they do parent to parent, mom to mom and most cases, that that was the best place to find ideas for how to use these new cards. many families were talking

amongst themselves on how to use education savings account as we were going to the department of education. next slide please. the next thing we asked was how satisfied they were good this was early on in arizona's program. the satisfaction levels were very high. both in this focus group and and a larger survey that we did of families using the accounts in arizona. what is critical about this chart right here is that the top many hadsking them how some level of satisfaction with their previous public school before they moved to an education savings account. ask the same families how satisfied they were with education savings account after they had left the traditional school system. find that there was unequivocally some level of satisfaction without exception there amongst families when they talk about education savings accounts, even those that in the

prior question had said that they were very satisfied with their previous public school. for a new program, it's a very good sign. next slide please. what comes next? now that we have five states using education savings accounts. two of them have one year of influencing these accounts among thousands of families. how our thing becomes state governments going to regulate it? what are the rules would to beat how are they going to enter them. ? what i would urge state lawmakers to do is go to australia, at least briefly. the reason is that years and years ago, decades ago, the government of australia thought it would be a good idea to introduce came codes because beetle were eating the sugarcane. and the cane toads got rid of the beatles, but now there is a cane toad problem. now there is a website dedicated

on what to do with cane toads in the state. a news report that came out that they decided there was a humane way to kill cain tends in australia. that was putting them in a freezer and freezing them good that is the same heavy-handed way to deal with savings accounts -- put them on ice. both arizona and florida lawmakers have written guidelines for families and vendors who are active in the education savings accounts programs in those states about the rules that work for families and keeping track of how they spend their money, tracking to make sure they follow the guidelines in the law. the same thing with the vendors, right? we have states and lamenting these cards and awarding them to families.

those are the places that we should be looking to guide us as we make new rules and regulations. in fact, and just the past couple of months, past six weeks, nevada has held public hearings on what rules and regulations they are going to have lamented -- to implement. their laws are significant the onlyevada's law is one available to every public school student in the state. it is going to be critical that they do in fact get the rules and regulations right for their program to provide great opportunities for all students in that state. the last thing i would like to leave you with is also a quote from milton friedman and from his book " capitalism and freedom," which i know many of you in the audience have read and has shaped the way the market and also about education. he sent a problem today -- and

he's talking about education. " our problem today is not to enforce conformity. rather it is that we are threatened with an excess of conformity. our problem is to foster diversity cou." the alternative he is talking about the school choice. that is what education savings accounts brings education in the united states. now we can talk about an education as more of a learning experience that is as unique as the children that is using their account. thank you. [applause] tim keller: in the opening scene of "the avengers," the villagu earth andrrives on declares that he comes with glad tidings of a world made free.

which, shields director nick what?"ks, "free from loki's one-word response -- freedom. the opponents of the educational choice are trying to keep parents free from freedom. and unfortunately the of education of choice programs have been at this for years. doors inopened our 1991's, since then, there has not been a single day that we have not been in court someplace in this country defending an educational choice program. and today, i'm going to give you a preview of what is our most likely next school choice place. case. defending the program just past

in nevada. we are expecting the usual suspects to bring a constitutional challenge to nevada's educational savings account program in state court. who are the usual suspects? these are the individuals making the most statements -- the local aclu, the national aclu, the americans united for the separation of church and state, and of course the teachers unions. some common nation of these groups are going to join together to file litigation challenging nevada's program. they will do so in state court not federal court. why? because in 2002, the u.s. supreme court essentially took away all of the federal constitutional claims from those who opposed educational choice programs. united's -- the united states

supreme court said that a program neutral with regards to religion in which the government does nothing to either favor or disfavor religion or favor one religion over another and leaves the decision of which school to choose in the hands of parents, so that can't exercise a genuine private choice will pass federal constitutional muster, even if parents choose to enroll their students in religious schools . there is no federal constitutional claim we expect to see challenge in nevada's program. stateexpect them to vote constitutional claims. one of those claims is, i believe, a serious claim. the other claim, i believe, is frivolous. more timeto spend talking about the serious constitutional claim and then we will wrap up with the frivolous constitutional claim. what is a serious constitutional claim? nevada is a state that has in its constitution what is commonly referred to as the blaine amendment. we find blaine amendments and 37

states. what is a blaine amendment? blaine amendments are typically phrased to say something like this should be no state appropriations in eight of all of or for the benefit of sectarian schools or sectarian institutions good i will read you nevada's blaine amendment here. " no public funds of any kind or character or whatever, state, county, or municipal,. should be used for sectarian purpose." that is nevada constitution, section 10. where does the term blaine come from? mainenamed after a former u.s. house of representative, speaker of the house, and even united states senator james g blaine. mr. blaine served in congress and the late 1800s at a time in our country's history when we

,aw a huge influx of immigrants many of these immigrants were catholic. these individuals were not warmly received by the protestant majority. we saw in state after state numerous clashes between the protestant majority and our new immigrants over primarily, although not exclusively, the common school system. you see, the common schools of that time of what we would refer to today as public schools are not always the thoroughly secular schools that we are familiar with. in fact, in the late 1800s, the schools were primarily protestant in orientation. in fact, one of the goals of the early common school system was to take the children of catholic immigrants and essentially ortestant tieize americanize them.

there was concern that catholics would take direction from rome and upset are wonderful democratic republic. our newfound immigrants started enrolling their kids into common schools, he found a very hostile environment for the children. so what they did is they started agitating for their own system of publicly funded catholic education. they said the protestants have their school system, why shouldn't we have a publicly funded school system as well? there was a tremendous backlash against that push good a handful of states adopted what we call proto-blaine amendments. they prohibited funding of sectarian schools. as the u.s. supreme court itself is recognize, that word sectarian was code for catholic. it was an open secret. everybody knew exactly what they met. so mr. blaine, who wanted to ride this wave of anti-catholic

bigotry into the white house, introduced an amendment to the u.s. constitution that would have prohibited funding for sectarian schools. 1876, the provision passed the united states house of representatives with a required two thirds majority to send it to the states for ratification. however in 1877, the amendment failed in the u.s. senate. however, it did garner a the two vote, not thirds required of the states. because there was still a majority of senators and congressmen in the u.s. congress , they were able to force or new states entering the union to include in their state constitutions these blaine amendments, which are just dripping with anti-catholic animius. nevada is interesting because the history there is slightly different.

they voluntarily chose to amend their state constitution in 1877, the same year that the blaine amendment failed at the congressional level, the u.s. congressional level. the reason that they did so was assembly hadtate been making appropriations to a catholic orphanage. there was a large mining , andtion in nevada unfortunately, it was a very dangerous occupation. it still is, even more so back in the late 1800s. there were many orphans in the state in the catholic church operated orphanages to take care of them. the state had made a number of appropriations over the years to help control those costs. ofs was a huge source controversy, primarily because the orphanages themselves were

catholic. named oxfordmen introduced legislation that articletimately become 11, section 10, which i read to you a moment ago. what is interesting is that as the amendment was coming up for a vote, "the nevada daily tribune" praise them for a legislation and they said this. " this is a move in the right direction and we trust it will meet with a hearty approval of every citizen of nevada. this is a stepping stone to the final breaking up of your power that has long cursed the world and is obtaining too much of a foothold in these united states." you can see that nevada's blaine amendment is also dripping with that same anti-catholic animus. what does this mean with the challenge? number 1 -- we know exactly what the nevada blaine amendment was

intended to do. theas intended to prevent state from funding sectarian institutions directly. it has nothing to say about programs that provide parents with benefits in a completely religiously neutral manner in which the state does not put its thumb on the scale and effort to course -- in an effort to course parents to take one option over the other. they can choose the same schools without financial assistance to satisfy the children's compulsory education requirement. we do not think that the blaine amendment itself based on its historical purpose applies at all to this program. look at, if you just the plain language of the provision and ignore its ugly history, the provision itself is designed to constrain the actions of government officials and not private citizens whether

they use their tried it benefits. the medicaid program is funded with a combination of both federal and state dollars. individuals are permitted to use the benefits at religious hospitals, religious health care providers. why? the government itself is not making the decision to choose those benefits. the government makes the appropriations with the purpose of providing health care and they allow the recipient to obtain that health care wherever they would like. the esa serves the same purpose. the purpose of underlying the esa's adopted around the country is to improve education, to give parents control over their children's education. to allow parents to uniquely tailored their child's education program to meet that child's unique educational needs. from the state's perspective,

the only purpose it has served his education, no sectarian purpose is served. if you ask the parents their perspective on this, their perspective would also be that they are using these funds to obtain an education regardless towhether they had choose obtain that at a religious or nonreligious school. if you ask any parent why they are paying for a religious school, it is because they are tried to get a better education, not to further some sectarian purpose. we are confident that we will be able to successfully defend nevada's esa program from the attack of the states blaine amendment likely happen other states. what is the frivolous challenge? shortly after we won our case in the u.s. supreme court, the national education association's chief lawyer was debating the issue of school choice in new york. he said we have lost the federal

constitutional issues. we will now abandon the federal establishment laws. we will turn to state constitutions and we will grab there,y provision we can from lofty principles such as church and state to mickey mouse procedural issues. these are his words -- robert shannon. i now retired lawyer for the nea said we will take and choose lofty principles and mickey mouse procedural tactics. -- youer issue that is did not expect that, did you? [laughter] the other issue that our opponents have been talking about quite publicly is the provision of the nevada constitution, which requires the state to establish and maintain a public school system. " therovision says this, legislature's will provide a

provision for all schools. opponents of educational choice often grab onto these uniformity clauses and make an argument that these clauses require the educatione to fund exclusively through the public school system."the argument changes the meaning of the provisions from one of uniformity to one of exclusivity. , there has only been one state that has accepted this argument. that was florida in 2014 since that time, every court to consider it has rejected the argument and has found that these provisions establish a floor, not a ceiling. otherre free to build educational options for their students. i think we will be able to easily defend nevada's esa program from this constitutional onem, in large part because

of the issues when interpreting state constitutions is to interpret the provisions of the constitution together so they do not conflict. the nevada's education article actually begins with the statement. the legislature shall encourage by all suitable means the promotion of intellectual illiterate -- in a letter to -- intellectual, literary, and moral improvements." in conjunction with the desire to maintain a system of public schools, i believe that it is very clear that the public school system is the put on requirement to the nevada legislature and they are free to establish other options such as charter schools, magnet schools, and educational savings account program to provide their citizens with the most robust educational options for their kids. why is all this important? why are we here today?

jonathan told some great stories and i'm going to conclude with a story myself. because school choice is impacting real people. i want to tell you the story of one of the clients we represented in arizona, whose name is austan fox. austin has asperger's syndrome. he was in a public school where he had a 2.0 gpa. the reason he was struggling, as his mom described it, was that he experiences sensory overload in a large environment. for you and i sitting here this morning or this afternoon, it is relatively quiet in here. for every tapping of a pencil, seat, it would a be like a vegas casino for austin. might, thethe school public school just could not provide him a quiet learning environment he needed.

he was desperate to get out of school. he cannot stand being there. they really did try hard. this is not an example of a school that did not bend over backwards to a comedy austin. he just couldn't based on the way the school was set up. he was about to drop out when the esa program was enacted. his mom begged him to take a shot at they found a small private school that operated a similar to a homeschool environment. instead of sitting in a class, the students had sat on their own where they had a master teacher to master each individual subject could as soon as they mastered the subject, they could progress. austan spent two years in the school. -- 2.0 from a 2.0 gpo to gpa to a 4.0 gpa and scored in the 98th percentile on the sats and got a full ride scholarship to asu polytechnic campus. pretty cool. other educational reform are you aware of that can take a young man from a 2.0 gpa to a

4.0 gpa in just two years time? it's really incredible. with that, i will turn it over to lindsay. lindsey burke: [applause] thank you. sohave about 10 minutes or for a q&a. just raise your hand if you have a question and wait for the mic to come around to. yes, sir, in the back there. kevin from the heritage foundation. this is a general question could the use of educational savings accounts are interesting because instead of traditional school vouchers, parents not get to choose various aspects of their .ducation and how my question is regarding university admissions. they are generally based on high school transcripts as well as standardized test scores good if students are expanding a diversity of different aspects of their education that they are

obtaining from different sources, how do you think the university admissions would change in the long run? jason bedrick: for students education -- jonathan butcher: if they are using an education savings account to homeschool, all states have homeschool laws within them ways to get a high school transcript. nothing changes there either. i think even if a child is spending some time buying individual online classes for paying for personal tutors to come to the home, that would qualify under the homeschool law. they would go through the same procedures. i do not think there is anything in the education savings account set up that would interfere with the way that students complete high school and prepare for college. now how will this change how colleges handled their own admissions? that is a larger question i think lindsay knows more about

it. accountsation savings toe one step closer forward is based on efficiency and not how much time they spend in a seat. arizona has the grand canyon diploma that allow students to test out of various requirements as early as nine court 10th grade. i think arizona -- and i think other states are doing something similar -- are moving in this direction. they are beginning to see that seat time requirements are relating of the past. both education savings accounts and online education are kind of moving us toward that. >> this is an area that we can expect technology to step in . acrostic -- ian that interactap with other education providers.

if there are obtaining online classes from a well-known school like the veritas academy, it gher. that hi i have investigated tremendously, and i do not unfortunately happening, but students who are getting in all a cart education would be able to collect all that data in one place. that apple will help that apply tohen they colleges and universities and will be able to demonstrate the mastery of various subjects. lindsey burke: i'm sure there is a lesson to be learned from uber as well fit slowly, we are starting to see universities reconfigured how they admit students as well. aboutmments made me think that in general we are starting to embrace competency-based learning models a little more. read thed a chance to schoolhouse, it is a great example of how folks are starting to think how we think

about learning and education and how we measure that could he founded con -- how we measure that. argues that whenever a child learns in school can be fixed. he flips that competency model to make sure that learning is fixed in the time that it takes to get there is variable. if a student needs to move on, they move on. and they need more time, they need more time. we see that at the university level. administrators need to recognize that they are doing it and apply ma'amk-12 is welfare yes, -- a flight to k-12 as well. ma'am. >> can you explain why groups like aclu and teachers unions are opposing this in nevada? tim keller: i try never to presume motive could that is a lesson -- i'd try never to presume motive.

as a lesson that i learned from the goldwater institute could they have been opposing these programs for over 20 years. we see challenges by those groups in arizona, georgia, florida. they are always been to the front lines leading the charge is for it is probably worth noting, they called it a voucher. the court dider: not. this is fundamentally different from a voucher. that was something that was a significant finding. it was important for arizona and the other states that have passed the law. >> yes, sir. just a little bit of lateral thinking here. i want to say please tell me that arizona legislators are listening to so many constituents about these educational savings accounts that they had a little light

bulb go off in their head and say, how about health savings accounts? there areutcher: certainly listen to their constituents on this. jason bedrick: the program was for students with special needs. they have expanded it to a number of different categories, children, military families, foster children, children living on native american reservations, children attending low performing public schools. it are listening to their constituents. jonathan mentioned the student satisfaction survey. one thing important about that is that we also broke down the questions on satisfaction by income. we found that those families that were the least well-off financially, earning $27,000 a year or less, where the least satisfied with their previous public school experience. more than half of them expressed dissatisfaction. you to take you

to the house for the a session,e business on tap for today. live coverage on c-span. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. the chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. the clerk: the speaker's rooms, washington, d.c.,, july 31, 2015, i hereby appoint george holding to act as speaker pro tempore this day, signed speaker of the house of representatives. the speaker pro tempore: the prayer will be offered by the guest chaplain, reverend john eck, holy trinity catholic

church, washington, d.c., >> we praise and thank you for the opportunity to serve you and do your work. we know you will require much of those entrusted with much. to the entrusted members of this house great responsibility, a share in the governing of our country. bless the members in their work today, lord. may they do all that you require and please you by their service to the common good. give them minds open to the truth and courageous hearts to carry it out in the laws they enact. as they return to their districts for the month of august, give them ears open to their constituents' views and concerns. encourage and re-energize them for the important work that lies ahead. we ask all these gifts through christ our lord. the speaker pro tempore: the

chair will lead the house in the pledge of allegiance. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and pursuant to l. section 2 of house resolution 380, the journal of the last day's proceedings is approved. the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant to the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the rules of the u.s. house of representatives, the clerk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on july 30, 2015 at 2:30 p.m., that the senate passed without amendment, h.r. 3236, signed sincerely, karen l. haas.

the speaker pro tempore: the chair lays before the house a communication. the clerk: the honorable, the speaker, house of representatives, sir, pursuant the permission granted in clause 2-h of rule 2 of the u.s. house of representatives, the erk received the following message from the secretary of the senate on july 31, 2015 at 10:01, that the senate passed 22, that ents, h.r. the senate passed senate 1172. signed sincerely karen l. haas. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to clause 4 rule one, 9 following enrolled bill was signed by the speaker on thursday, july 30, 2015. the clerk: h.r. 3236, a bill to provide an extension of federal aid highway, motor carrier safety, transit and other programs funded out of the highway trust fund to provide

resource flexibility to the department of veterans affairs for health care services and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: pursuant to section 2, subsection b of house resolution 380, consistent with the fourth clause in section 5, article 1 of the constitution and notwithstanding section 132 of the legislative reorganization act of 1946, the house stands adjourned until noo >> a brief pro forma session in the u.s. house. the house is out for its august recess, that will be pro forma sessions in the house we back on 8 to continue with legislative business. we are alive now in the white house briefing room, expecting the briefing to get underway in just a few moments with press secretary josh earnest. he is joined today by energy monetary ernest moneys -- iz.

this is live coverage on c-span. secretary earnest: good afternoon. nice to see well. happy friday. let me do a quick announcement and we will go to our special guest today. on this coming wednesday, next

week, the president will travel to american university and washington, d.c. to deliver a speech on the historic deal reached by the united states alongside our partners and allies to prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. the president will continue his effort to make the case for why the iran deal verifiably prevent iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. he will lay out the enormous stakes in the current debate taking place in congress and describe what is to manage is far preferable to the alternatives. many of you know, students of history, that 50 years ago, president kennedy spoke of a future defined by peace, not war , at american university. describedent will also how this debate is fundamentally about u.s. leadership in the world and how we can leave global efforts to address threats like iran's nuclear program the way we did when president teddy made the case for diplomatic efforts to address the threat of nuclear weapons and avoid catastrophic conflict. that should make for an interesting day on wednesday. joining me at the briefing today is energy secretary ernest mon

many of youiz. we will recall his visit to the blog briefing room. on julye announcement 14 of this final agreement, we have been trying to schedule his appearance here the briefing room to discuss the deal and to answer your questions about it. based on the president's travel z'sedule and secretary moni visits to capitol hill, today is the first day we were able to schedule this. moniz?ry secretary moniz: my opening statement is there are too many familiar faces. i would like to reinforce what was said that obviously, this on thent was focused question of nuclear weapons and iran. and the president's commitment

and what i will believe will be a commitment a future presidents as well to commit that iran will not have a nuclear weapon. i believe it provides us with a lot of tools to make sure that is the case for it or if it isn't, to make sure that we find out in a timely way to respond. with that, i am open for questions. >> i'm wondering if you can clear up whether it's possible iran -- [inaudible] that's reallyz: question for the intelligence committee. i think what they would tell you is we feel pretty confident that we know their current configuration, clearly the deal, of course, is ultimately based on verification. as general clapper said earlier this week, while we can never

have 100% certainty, that we know everything, this agreements provides tremendously enhanced insight into the program, and ,ertainly over the years ahead with the measures we have taken, and with the considerable international presence in iran, we expect to provide the intelligence community with many more tools. >> because of our lack of information on the iran nuclear program, could you talk to us about the insights that you will get come in layman's terms, what you are expecting to get this deal goes through and you are allowed to walk in and see what's going on? secretary moniz: we should really think about a opposedtion system as to just one element here, one

element there. they all work together. i think the critical issues are first, that we have tremendously at theirpresence nuclear facilities. if you like, they are known or declared nuclear facilities. that includes the most stringent containment and surveillance opportunities for the iaea, including the use of advanced technologies. secondly, and very important is there is an impressive and to visibility into the entire uranium supply chain. uraniumway from basically just getting processed through a centrifuge manufacturing to conversion to gas. you name it. i think an important part of were to try if iran to develop a covert program, they would have to re-create an entire fuel cycle.

an entire supply chain comics use me. beginning to and, in multiple locations, doing multiple technologies and one weak link in the supply chain and there would be a problem. that's very important, this entire supply chain. what i was saying earlier, it's really about more tools for the intelligence community. a third point i want to emphasize is, because there has been a lot made about the iaea process with regard to undeclared sites, and that is that we have for the first time, anywhere, a fixed time period for resolution. and secondly, we remain very confident in our abilities to detect the signatures of any activity with nuclear materials. >> you been spending a lot of time on the hill talking the lawmakers and you mean a certain

threshold -- you need a certain threshold of votes to override a veto. how may votes in the house and senate? secretary moniz: i don't count votes, just try to explain the deal. we remain convinced that the to explains we have exactly what the agreement is, and of course, not for me but for the president and the secretary of defense, secretary about theo talk ensuing activities around regional security arrangements, then the more i think we will be able to carry the day. iran has long denied they ever intended to develop nuclear weapons. this is all about civilian nuclear energy. att is your sense, looking the iran nuclear program -- do you have any doubt in your mind that the nuclear program was established with the intention

of developing nuclear bombs? secretary moniz: a little historical perspective. of course, their nuclear energy programs started many, many decades ago. in fact, prior to the 1979 revolution. so, they were definitely going for nuclear energy for quite a while. things, and ie will refer to my previous life as an academic analyzing nuclear power issues, we always said that the economics were not there for developing things like thechments, until you had order of 10 nuclear power plants. iran statement that they are in fact planning for a program of that are even greater size, and that they are, in light of supply challenges, looking to fuelop capacity to provide for at least part of that. but that is their statement.

we have said many times, this is not an agreement based on trust. statement were simply accepted at face value, they wouldn't have ended these engines regime in the first place. there would not be iaea reports out there that talk about structured programs up to 2003 that were looking at technologies relevant to a weapons program. this is all about verifying. , especially for the first 15 years, having dramatic restraints on their nuclear activities. from day one, and forever, to having strength and verification procedures. >> what you say to the people of israel who are convinced that this, although in the ministrations perspective would make that country more safe, does just the opposite and that there will be so much money now with the ending of sanctions programs that will effectively put a bull's-eye on the state of

israel from the money that will go to many of iran's partners like hezbollah, hamas, and others. nuclear weapon or other weapons, they think it's a bull's-eye the goes on their heads. though i moniz: even will tire of repetition, i want to emphasize this significantly rules back all aspects of their nuclear program, and that's the verification. with regards to funding, this is obviously not my lane. but i can certainly repeat what secretary lou has emphasized over and over again, first of the resources to which iran probably incess is the range of around $55 billion. a lot of that is going to get tied up in a whole variety of areas, including their need to be able to finance international transactions. obviouslys also said,

we're not going to say that some of this funding will not go to their military. so it's going to go there. what we say is, i think, what the president has said, what secretary kerry has said, what secretary carter said on wednesday at the senate hearing is that we are going to have to redouble our efforts around regional security issues, we're going to have to confront thectly and energetically isious areas in which iran generating instability and supporting terrorism. i think in the end, we need to have a system that, without iran , having the confidence of iran not having a nuclear weapon, that we will be able to focus even more intensely on these additional security challenges. >> thank you.

i want to ask you about the undeclared sites. what are the verification mechanisms that will be at play when you are monitoring the so-called undeclared sites/ ? monitoringffer from undeclared sites, if it happens that iran is in sums sort of material violation, it is there a mulligan? what is the process before the international community does more than just sanction this regime? secretary moniz: there's a huge difference between declared an undeclared sites. in the former, in the iaea, they will have daily access using advanced technologies, increased number of inspectors, and the resources to carry that out. by definition, an undeclared --e starts out with one of with no monitoring because it was undeclared.

intelligence is the foundation of being able to point the iaea to those locations. once that happens, then we have this defined process with a defined timeframe for resolving it. i would say that if you think in terms of possible violations of the agreements, clearly there was the opportunity for graded responses. example, the snapback of you and sanctions is termed in whole or in part. so now comes the issue of what deserves a graded response response?ore robust for example, one of the very important conditions of the agreement is the 300 kilograms of low enriched uranium for 15 years. time, if there happens to be a little imbalance there, that's probably something that's going to get corrected. but you wouldn't call a material response to kind of bring down

the whole 64 times. isthe other hand, if there nuclear activity, nuclear materials activity and undeclared site, that is found, i would consider that to be a very material breach, and one that would call for a reaction. president toldhe supporters in a conference call that because so much money is being spent in opposition to this deal, it a lot of members are really feeling the political heat and some are getting quote -- squishy. are you experiencing that, and when you -- when the president does feel someone is getting squishy, are you the guy who calls to firm things up? secretary moniz: i'm certainly get enough calls -- getting enough calls to speak to members. and i welcome it. frankly pleased at how many members are really documents, both

public and confidential documents that we have supplied. squishy, i wouldn't use that term a. i have spoken to many members after they've had visits, shelley say. we say. it has led them to sharpen their questions, and hopefully for us to sharpen our answers. that is a we can do, to continue the process of explaining exactly what this agreement is. i think it will stand on its own. >> [inaudible] based on your conversation with lawmakers, do you think that or doeswill be enough, the white house and administration have anything to do with getting the general 2 -- [inaudible] toretary moniz: i want dispel this idea of secret site deals. there is no secret side deal. d.o.a.eement, the jc

jcpoa agreement is that iran will stop blunting the iaea attempts to finish the investigation. somehow we think this last visit to one site is kind of the whole thing. there has been many, many years thattivity and reports that is was responsible for a lot of the sanctions over the last years. -- this is nots secret, this is public. iran must respond by october 15 in terms of providing iaea all of the access it has asked for in their agreed-upon protocol. standard,ocols, as a are called safeguards confidential between the country and the iaea. independence is very important or long-term interests.

is a standard safeguards confidential protocol. i will give you an example. if you go back almost 25 years, the iaea basically took apart the south african program. those documents all remain confidential. that is the standard. the issue is, iaea negotiated with iran in confidential protocols. what would be the steps required for the iaea to have satisfaction that it could finish the job and issue the final report on what happened? typically we are talking 12 years ago. i welcome that. i should say, when i met with the director general in vienna a few days before the agreement was completed, he said then that he was going to be very happy to come and have discussions with

the administration and with the congress. i am personally quite pleased that he is following up on that in a timely way. i think it will be very helpful. >> you said you are not responsible for counting votes, but you set a considerable time on the hill, in public and behind closed doors meeting with members of congress. he also said you didn't refer to any of them getting squishy. what is your level of confidence on the hill?] secretary moniz: i remain confident this agreement will go into effect. ultimately, certainly unless minds,re too many closed the thing which most disappointed me was all of the opining on the agreement before was reached. i think as long as their open is very,e agreements very powerful in its constraints on the iranian program and on its enhanced verification

measures. i think as long as we keep at it and keep explaining that, and have others like the secretary kerry and secretary carter and the president meeting regional security commitments more broadly, i think the deal will certainly go into effect. people see this is corrected to the -- connected to the iran deal. number in growing congress -- i find theoniz: linkage to be interesting. i would note first of all a is,ht difference that iran after all, an oil exporter, they would like to be more of an oil exporter than they are today, obviously. the united states remains an importer of 7 million barrels of crude oil per day.

very, very asymmetric situations. there's a broader issue in general about american oil experts, obviously the congress has been acting on that. that is a question for secretary cisco. -- a question for secretary fisk or. >> i understand you just had a meeting with leaders of major jewish organizations, some who oppose the group. can you tell me if you think you made any headway in selling the deal? what are the questions you think are most formidable to persuading these leaders who are opposed? secretary moniz: it was a very good meeting. leaders of the jewish came in from across the country. it showed, think right there a very strong interest in really having a chance to discuss the agreement in depth.

make progress, again, i don't like to make value judgments. i can say it was a very good discussion here it not surprising, these were people who were well schooled in the agreements. but also had lots of clarifying questions to ask. i felt that we made real progress in terms of clarification of issues in terms of how this agreement was ultimately good for our security , and for the security in the region. a lot of the questions -- some of the ones being asked here. what is the 24 days? what is the iaea arrangement? i was a lot of it focused on these questions of verification. we all understand that those are central to this question of finding any covert activity. i think for example, a point that was -- we emphasized and

had impact, and had not been as fully appreciated is this idea of having transparency across the entire supply chain. of uranium, and how that significantly enhanced our capabilities to find anything allowed supply chain. i think it was a very good meeting and you are certainly it was that i think quite appropriate, people came to that meeting with very different perspectives. >> on the whole secret side deal allegation. secretary moniz: there is no secret side deal. folks who say we are placing a lot of trust in the iaea in subcontracting out the decision about what american sanctions should do in the future. should we trust the iaea? secretary moniz: we have always

trust of the iaea. is an extreme a confident organization. at aht add, partly because place like los alamos national laboratory, we have courses that all of the iaea inspectors take, for example. that has been going on for decades. obviously, many, many nationalities involved in the iaea safeguards activities area a number of them are american. typically coming from our laboratories. they will not be part of the inspection teams because of our lack of diplomatic relations, a very confident organization. but we have done is give them the tools they need to apply this talents. and i might say, to expand their scope relative to other things as well. for example, the issue of having verification opportunities

literally for the uranium supply chain is something they have sought -- they would love to have. in other sought occasions. unsuccessfully. this will be the first time they will have the capability. aperiod in which they to deploythe ability advanced technologies, enrichment monitoring technologies. i might add, developed in our national laboratories. electronic seals, our laboratories worked on that. etc., etc. they are very competent, they need to have the options at their disposal to deploy their tools -- this is what the agreement gives them. i wanted to ask a technical question about the heavywater reactor. the original framework agreement said the court would be destroyed.

think the final agreement said that concrete will be poured into the core. -- into the core. is that the same as destroying it? yes, it renders it unusable in that or any other reactor. >> iran will be able to get that core restarted or rebuilt? secretary moniz: if the agreement is rejected, then obviously -- well, i say obvious i presume iran will not take the steps. one is removing that reactor, and then in collaboration with 5+1, which includes the united states, to carry through an alternative design with less plutonium production and then build that reactor and in thetion to send all of

irradiated plutonium-bearing fuel out of the country for the whole life of the. but if there is no agreements, i do not see personally why they would do that. they would presumably leave that just finish that reactor, which is a major plutonium producer. >> how long is that process? at what point in the agreement are they supposed to have the redesign? secretary moniz: as the agreement says, a working group will be set up involving iran -- andl, involving the p5+1, that will go forward immediately. it is not like there has not been some work done on this. countries, technical teams, including our own, particularly the argonne laboratory, which is where

special research reactor design that is why we have confidence in the basic parameters, and if you look at agreement, we have the specification of the reactor. and then as expeditiously as possible to go through design and construction and been commissioning of the reactor. victoria: in your meeting with lawmakers, what is the credible alternative they have come up with? secretary moniz: i have not heard one, to be honest. at least not one that has the same impact as the agreement does. we have said, and again, i am not the secretary of state, but never the less, i would opine if we now undercut this agreement, it is hard to see that there would not be very negative

consequences that we would see very quickly. i think one of the surprising elements of disagreements to me is the fact that the p5+1 could hang together through a tough, grinding negotiation over a long time at the same time in which it is very clear some members of have some other issues among ourselves, and we all know, i think who we are talking about. yet there was tremendous cohesion there. core underlying reason and one that would give me some confidence that this isesion will take, if there any question about how iran is implementing the group, the p5 have a self interest in preserving the non-clarissa creation -- the non-clarissa rate and regime. obviously -- the non-

proliferation regime. obviously, this ain't to be executed properly -- this needs to be executed properly. >> odd one -- secretary moniz: i am, too. [laughter] agreement, in part because of the figure in washington, you have got the slightly longer hair than the rest of us -- >> he means that in a nice, positive way. [laughter] it is you tell us what about bringing an academic to washington, which is a somewhat unusual thing that may have worked out in your particular case him and why you think that spokesmanecome the for this agreement that you have now brought before us? acretary moniz: i would say spokesman for the agreement.

it is an area that -- as you know, frankly, this was not part of my job description, but obviously it was a fortuitous set of circumstances in which this is an area that i do have a lot of experience. it is not known. here is some news, here is some news. up theou could look american physical society report on nuclear fuel cycle and waste management, and it is terrific. i recommend it for and some the up. [laughter] and there is a chapter in there on nuclear safeguards, and frankly i was the lead author of that chapter, so this goes back to 1978. is, i will beg

honest, there was a certain fortuitous nest in the fact that mr. salafi, who was also an m.i.t. graduate, i did not know but we have at least , which probably also helped move the negotiation along because these kinds of negotiations are important. whatever the case is, i am happy obviously to assist the president and secretary kerry to aid in the negotiation to advance this agreement. you brought m.i.t. paraphernalia to some of these negotiations, is that right? secretary moniz: i want to make it clear -- this was not dialed or anything else. -- guile or anything else. i have two grandchildren. i's first

grandchild was born during the conversation. >> thank you, mr. secretary. >> is the book on amazon? [laughter] 1978 book, is that on amazon, i am not sure? [laughter] >> thank you, sir. all right, we will take questions, so if there are additional discussions, we can get to them. >> on a different topic, i want to see what your response was or to the fire that has been blamed on jewish individuals in israel.

josh, the united states condemns the attack. the arson attack on a family, the dead of night resulted in the death of an 18-month-old baby, and an injury of three other family members. -- we they are profound convey our profound condolences to the family. the united states welcomes primus or netanyahu's order to israeli security forces. we urge all sides to maintain escalatingoid tensions. >> american intelligence including cia are saying that the islamic state is essentially as strong as it was a year ago despite all of our efforts there. basically they are replenishing

it as quickly as we are diminishing them. of the white house agree with that? josh, i think any evaluation of the facts and anyone with memory about what has transpired over the last 12 months what knowledge that we have made important progress in the campaign to destroy isil. that is undeniable. over the last year, the u.s. withtion has now hit isil more than 5000 airstrikes, and that has resulted in the destruction of thousands of fighting positions, bomb factory, training camps, and even some isil fighters. our partners over the last year have made important process -- progress on the ground when talking about iraq. orl has been driven out of at least is no longer able to

freely operate in 25% above the populated areas that they previously controlled. that is an indication that their footprint has been reduced. that is quite a start contrast to what was taking place one was ago today when isil essentially operating and moving unimpeded across the desert in iraq, even threatening cities urbil and baghdad. you will recall around the funny year ago there was a siege under way us intermountain where minorities where traps, and isil fighters were threatening to slaughter them. since that time, effectively with forces on the ground, since our mountain is no longer the site of a widespread slaughter like isil was threatening, and has been retaken by anti-isil

forces. there are a variety of ways to measure the progress we have made in syria as well. the progress made in syria is not ethnic and at the progress made in iran, none the less, i has been driven out. we have talked about the significant losses that isil fighters have endured, including any key city of columbia -- in -- that supply route has now been shut down. the president ordered a raid back in may in which a senior isil commander in syria was killed, and a treasure trove of intelligence information was obtained and is currently being exploited.

earlier this month, the department of defense announced the removal of a key al qaeda corazon group leader. but is different from isil, it is still a security concern at the president's articulated a year ago. that is to say nothing of the important process that has been made on a political front in iraq. we have always indicated that progress on a critical that's on the political front would be critical. one year ago today, prime minister maliki was sitting comfortably in office, governing that country in a sectarian way that ultimately undermined the effectiveness of the security forces but more broadly undermined the ability of the country to confront this isil threat. over the course of a last year, we've seen a new government take office led by prime minister a badi.

thats also extended approach to the security forces, and that is improve the performance of iraqi security forces. i think the variety of measures to evaluate the progress we've made against isil in iraq and in syria and the provenance of those measures indicate that we have made important progress, but there is no doubt that there continues to be significant challenges in confronting isil. you noted one of them, which is that isil has continued to demonstrate some ability to continue to recruit fighters to their site. this is an important part of our strategy, and we obviously would like to see additional progress in confronting the flow of foreign fighters to the region, countering their radicalization strategy that they pursued and social media, but more effectively operating in these communities that had previously been taken over by isil to

ensure that we can put in place some kind of stable governing structure that will make it more recruitt for isil to sympathizers to their side. it is a long answer, but an important one. thanks. jeff? jeff: does the white house of any last-minute measures to help puerto rico ahead of the expected default this weekend? if not, are you concerned about the consequences of that? of that expected default. mr. earnest: jeff, as you know, the of administration has for some time been trying to work with puerto rico and its local leaders as they confront the financial challenges that they face in the commonwealth. puerto rico is home to more than 3.5 million u.s. citizens, who have persevered through a .ecade-long recession we have put in place, the president has directed the creation of a puerto rico task force.

some of the president of the most senior economic advisers have been engaged in the work of that task or some and obviously secretary lew has been closely following the efforts of both puerto rico and this task force to confront some of these significant financial challenges. a paymentt there is that puerto rico is scheduled to make i believe by monday. what we have said for some time is that there should be no expectation of a federal bailout , but there should be the expectation that the obama administration will continue to work with puerto rico and their as theyaders to say -- work with some pretty significant financial challenges. jeff: are you concerned about that fallout? mr. earnest: i would refer you to the treasury department forces affect economic analysis of the consequences if that payment is not made.

at this point, i would be reluctant to foreshadow what the since atces could be least this point the payment -- all right, john? rico,first on puerto former governor luis fortuno, an advocate of statehood, said if order rico moved ahead with statehood, it would be a lot easier to resolve these problems. he recalled conversations he had on the president -- with the president on this where he found him not committed. what is the president for the position with puerto rico and statehood? mr. earnest: our position is this is the decision for the people of puerto rico to make. toucture has been created try to resolve this issue, but our position continues to be that this would be a decision for the people of puerto rico to make. john: i was wondering if you can

clear up one more thing on this negotiation with iran. at the president's news conference, in his memorable said theto majors, he question is, why did we not try negotiations to their release, meaning the hostages. think about the logic that that create, and he went on to a thoroughly. the next day, secretary kerry appeared on the morning joe program and said that during the iran nuclear talks, and i quote, "there was not a meeting that took place, not one meeting that took place, believe me, that is not an exaggeration, where we did not raise the issue of our american citizens being held," and he said it was the last conversation he had with the foreign minister. it would seem, on the surface at least, the statements the president and the secretary of state made are contradictory. can you explain it and clear it up echo mr. earnest: i can, john.

we said even while the conversations were ongoing, that secretary kerry and others frequently raise the case of americans being unjustly detained in iran with their counterparts on the sideline of the ongoing negotiations. let me with that means. it means there was never a let meon in which -- explain what that means. it means there was never a situation in which we offered of these unjustly detained americans as a bargaining chip in these ongoing negotiations. it is our view that these americans should be released without any conditions so that they can return to the united united withbe their families. we continue to advocate for the release, and we will continue to do that. the president made an important point in a news conference in saying that the successful conclusion of the nuclear negotiation was, as all of you know, not at all a foregone conclusion. in fact, there was some healthy

skepticism about whether or not this would be completed. the negotiations were not completed until two weeks after the original deadline. -- had these individuals and their fates been tied to the successful completion of the nuclear negotiation, and the negotiation not have yield an agreement, it would've only set back our efforts to try to secure the release, and that is why the presidents may be prudent judgment to routinely and at secretary kerry indicated daily -- aclear that the state safe return of the american citizens is a top priority of administration of your we would not subject them to back and forth bargaining that took place in the nuclear talks. olivier? timelines?y mr. earnest: no additional

timelines. olivier: does this play in the closing of the entire naval base, or just the detention center? mr. earnest: just the detention center. >> the oval office called out congress for the house, specifically for leaving without having done the budget. what conversation or what is the white house already doing to try to avoid a shutdown? mr. earnest: what the president has done and what he did back in february was to put out a very detailed budget proposal. this is a budget proposal that fully funds our national security, that assures the community, and their holding was paid for with commonsense reform to our tax code that would make our tax code more fair and more straightforward. that is the president's refunds ability, is to be clear and

direct about what exactly is priorities are. but ultimately, the founding fathers of our nation believe that it was important for congress to have the power of the purse, and this is a constitutional responsibility, the basic responsibility of anyone who goes to the united states congress, which is to legislate and pass a budget for the united states of america. constitutional, congressional responsibility, and the good news is that we have seen democrats be very forward leaning. we are willing to sit down at the negotiation table with those in congress to try to find a bipartisan common ground. that is the formula for past -- for pastry success. if you're ever in 2013 after the government shutdown with sustained for a few weeks, there was a patch put in place in a paul ryan and patty murray, a leading house republicans and a leading senate democrat, sat down at the negotiating table and hammered out a bipartisan agreement. it was certainly not a big agreement, and there are some

aspects of the agreement that the president did not like, but what i did do is it avoided a second government shutdown, and it identified clear bipartisan common ground where we can make investments above and beyond the sequester, not just in our national security but also in our economy. we believe that as a template for success, and we believe that is what democrats and republicans in congress should do. democrats have indicated a willingness to do that, but we have not seen the same willingness from republicans. significanturce of disappointment because we know what is going to happen. we have seen this will be before -- the ending is not very good. they will come back in early september, and it will say oh, my goodness, look at us, we only have three for a government shutdown. and they will claim that they do not have time. the fact is, that is white has been a source of such disappointment that republicans have been talking to democrats to pass a budget.

so what's the president indicated is he was hopeful that they would use at least a couple of the next 39 days that they are on vacation to start having these kinds of conversations, even if they are informal, even if they are phone calls, even if they are around a table at the beach somewhere. that we consider having constructing conversations between democrats and republicans in congress, that ultimately we arrive at a bar partisan -- at a bipartisan budget agreement that is not risk any sort of government shutdown. would you be to a spending bill that would include defunding planned parenthood? what we have indicated in the past can train used true today, that we have routinely opposed the inclusion of ideologically driven writers in the budget. certainly a writer that on a whole cell basis what defines planned parenthood, it is something that was certainly get

a veto. >> as the president spoken with senator schumer? mr. earnest: it president has spoken with a number of members of the united states senate, democrat and republican, but i do not have specific conversations to give you. april? april: do you have more information on the white house can vacation with cincinnati officials after the charges of the police officer there, the university police officer? mr. earnest: i'm not aware of any specific conversations that have taken place in the indictment was announced in the last day or two. i know that after the last several days of valerie jarrett, the president's senior adviser, has been in touch with the mayor of cincinnati, but i'm not aware of any conversations that have taken place since the indictment was announced. -- hate crime charges for the charleston shooting. what is the white house have to say about that? mr. earnest: this is a case that

will be handled by the department of justice, and i know they take a significant responsibility that they have very seriously, and the president continues to have complete confidence in the skill and professionalism of our federal prosecutors. we are confident that this individual will be brought to justice. april: the president went down and eulogized the pastor there. namid not use dylann roof's he brought it up, and there were references to the confederate flag. we heard from eyewitnesses about peer, racial hate. what you say to that? mr. earnest: all i will say -- i will be careful because i did not want to say anything that will be construed as influencing the criminal justice process. the president has a lot of confidence in the criminal justice process, and in no small part because of the skill and

professionalism of our prosecutors. i will say there has been ample evidence that has been presented publicly, but what is most important is for that evidence to be presented in a court of law, and for the accused to be all of the rights and responsibilities that the constitution guarantees. but we know that our federal prosecutors take this case seriously and have committed to pursuing justice. we believe that his exact we what they are pursuing right now. john? john: to come back to the planned parenthood videos, i wonder if you have an answer know whether or not the president has actually seen any of these videos. mr. earnest: i have not asked him that question point-blank, but i know that he is aware of the news that those videos have generated. john: one of the central questions here of course is whether or not planned parenthood was involved in selling the fetal tissue for profit. sure seems to be a strong

suggestion that is is that we what was being talked about on those videos. does the white house believe this should be investigated? obviously selling fetal tissue for profit is against the law. does the white house believe it should be investigated? mr. earnest: again, what i will say as i have not seen the video, but those who have taken a close look at them have raised some significant concerns about their authenticity and whether or not they accurately convey the view of those particular or in the broader institution. the "new york times" described this as a campaign of deception, "the seattle times" described this as -- and the "new york daily news" as grossly misleading. the other thing i looted to yesterday as we've seen this unscented byc be

other extremist organizations that have an ideological agenda, and they marshaled what is purported to be convincing and later dididence that not prove to hold up to much i guess the scrutiny that these videos have gotten much -- thus far by a sandful of news organization raises doubts about their authenticity. specificomes to determination about what is to be reach about it whether or not any sort of behavior or criminal action took place, that is obviously a determination that will be made by career the john: itt seems like -- prosecutors at the -- john: it seems like this is criminal behavior.

the white house believe that this long-standing ban on the for-profit fetal tissue sale should be enforced? this isest: of course the policy and the law, and we think everybody should be following the law. of ethics,a question and what planned parenthood has indicated is that their standards are consistent with the highest ethical standards that are out there. and again, there are significant questions that have been raised by outside organizations about the content of these videos, so i think that would explain the that i've shared here, but when it comes to making decisions about whether an investigation of possible permittivity or charges being brought consistent with the suspicion of criminal activity, those would be questions for the department of justice. john: it sounds like you are saying we should just believe

planned parenthood. they say they have upheld the highest ethical standards. mr. earnest: the standards they say they have in place are certainly relevant in this case, it again, those who have taken close looks at the videos have raised some significant concerns based on their own observations about the authenticity of the video. ultimately, i think the american people will take a look at the evidence. john: no one here has taken a close look at the video. mr. earnest: i think it is possible that people here have seen the video. it is based on the fact that it has gotten a lot of news attention. i haven't. i don't know if the president has. i certainly know there are a wouldl of people who generally be described as a partial observers, who have raised concerns about the content of the video. john. stateformer secretary of clinton has been in miami today. she made a speech calling for