host: gerard robinson, when you think back to when you were a fifth-grade teacher, went do you remember? >> i remember of the students that could think they could do anything in the world. i never being a very idealist teacher and if we impart knowledge at age 10 or 11, by the time they are adult they can do wonderful things. host: what did you teach them? >> i taught geography and history and math and science who are shared with another teacher. most of the subjects and had the students. host: where was this? >> it was a montessori private school and it was located a few blocks away from where i

attended elementary school. host: who is marcus garvey? >> he was a jamaican by birth -- an african this africanist. he simply believed he wanted to uplift and they had to believe in themselves and have a collective economic coach. if you look at what he was able to do in galvanizing millions of black people but also in the caribbean. it probably doesn't get too much attention. host: what was it like growing up in your family? gerard: my father was an entrepreneur. he owned a restaurant and he believed in an honest days work. my mother was also involved with work. they instilled in me the importance of education. host: when did you move to los angeles? gerard: i was born in lake

charles but within a month i was on a continental airline flight from lake charles to los angeles were my parents already lived. host: what neighborhood did you grow up in? what do you remember about your schooling there? you went to a community college first step. gerard: i came of age in the 1970's in los angeles. it was the crenshaw district where they were mostly families who did -- who were transplants from louisiana, arkansas, texas. many of them were part of the post war boom. it was called the 10 highway west. i grew up with my stepdad as well. and hard-working people who wanted to see people do things dramatically different. host: can you member the first time you actually started learning something?

and can you remember the teacher who taught is that? or was it your parents? gerard: my parents were the first ones who were my teachers. two differentin phases. i had a great memory of my fourth grade teacher and she is still alive. and her legacy , i started a scholarship at a school called st. mary's. she was an art teacher and she used it to change lives. my real learning period came at the community college level. i was a less than stellar student and at the age of 20, i got a grasp on how to read and write. el camino community college located where. gerard: it is in los angeles.

it is one of 100 community colleges that we have in california. it was a great starting point to me. i did not have the grades or the test score and did not have money. i spent three years at the el camino college. mentorswonderful ranging from elaine moore who was my counselor to raymond roney. they were the ones who said just because you arrived here does not mean that your life will have to be the same. i am a big proponent in the rural community colleges can play in transforming lives. host: why did you think you do not get good grades? gerald: i chased women, i drink beer, i smoked marijuana, i avoided homework during football season. that was pretty much it. i went to a college prep high school and a number of my

friends received academic scholarships to berkeley and the air force academy but i was on the athletic track and it out was always that way. as long as i played football all, most past well along. my senior year i was injured and i was two inches from being crippled for life. i thought wow there must be a different contact and my social contact had ended. host: how did you have the accident? sophomore ran helmet first into my knee. i heard a crack by the time i opened my eyes and was given the bad news that while i was two inches from being crippled for life i would be able to walk , again but my football career was over. frankly, i thought my life was over at the time. host: how long did it take you to mend and to change your direction. gerard: the physical mend it

took me about three years. i was going step-by-step and taking basic courses then i moved towards advanced courses. host: you went to howard here in washington, when did you major in and why. gerard: i arrived to howard and had an associate of arts degree in business. i decided to work for ibm and you know at that day apple did not exist. after taking one course in philosophy, i decided to change my major. i double majored in philosophy and anthropology. i was interested in how ideas mattered.

anthropology was a tool of social science. host: you are naming some of these teachers. what is good in a teacher? what they do? gerard: they actually spoke to the student on where i was at that point. they excited me about learning and they had high expectations for me. they do not give up. host: when you talk the -- to the fifth-graders, what techniques did you use? gerard: i let them know i was glad to be there teacher and every day would would try and say something good at the end of the day of what we learned in class. it was affirmation of the end of the day. we also had field trips whether it was to a museum or going to a conference at cal

poly. there were things inside and outside the classroom. one of my favorite students ryan lawrence. he graduated from howard and his wife was a graduate and so i was glad to see that was still in place. host: what year did you teach fifth grade? gerard: i taught 1991 to 1992. and then i moved into public policy. host: when did you go to harvard? cambridge ined in 1994 and earned a masters degree with a focus on education policy. i was interesting in how to figure out how to use public policy to close the achievement gap but also to open this opportunities.

i enjoyed my time there. i am a resident fellow at the american enterprise institution. they have been committed to freedom and opportunity and field market values in civilized society. i get the chance to talk about education and entrepreneurship. as well as the role of education in civil society. host: what were the politics of your parents? gerard: they were both democrats and my realization of what it democrat was was in 1978 when voters passed proposition 13. they changed property taxes and how they were used to fund schools. i remember my parents saying wow, the republicans have passed proposition 13. i said what is a republican? they said that republicans support rich people and democrats support poor and working people.

that is why we were democrats. host: did you start thinking the same thing? gerard: i was a democrat for 1992, whenlife until i decided to switched to the republican party. host: what was it that made you switch? gerard: i was a fifth grade teacher in los angeles. we have had the riots after the rodney king. school was closed and i ended up attending a number of meetings to figure out what we wanted to do. we would have to radically change on how and invest billions of dollars how we worked on the workforce. i did not hear two things, i did not hear the role of education was going to change and i did not see how the role of entrepreneurship were going to play. i switched my affiliation

and have been a republican since 1992. my parents were shocked, in some ways, they whisper, gerard is a republican now. it is still good fodder for jokes but 20 years later. i it was interesting to see the conversation when obama was elected. i voted for both john mccain and mitt romney. host: did you get kickback from your friends? gerald: absolutely. my wife is a democrat and a law professor and worked for the clinton administration. she had a shirt for my middle daughter, we have three daughters, she had a shirt that said my mama is for obama. i wanted a shirt that said my day

dad is insane and stands with mccain. what do you tell your children when you had an opportunity to vote for the first black president and you didn't? when i have an opportunity to vote for the first black president, i would like to have someone that i think is all qualified for the job and i think president obama is done a great job in many areas but i think mccain and romney would have done a better job. host: here is president obama using a phrase you write about not only at aei. let's watch this. president obama: making sure we are giving all of our children the best possible education. it is the single most important factor in determining. will also also determine whether we succeed. the key to opportunity if the civil rights issue of our time. host: do you agree?

gerard: i agree that it has civil rights significance. in 2016, we are 62 years removed from brown versus board of education. it fundamentally changed her education is delivered. we are a better nation than we were in 1954 but the challenge is when you make everything a civil rights issue it has civil rights remedies. it usually includes more bureaucracy and a vast infusion of cash without a link to performance and a big push to compartmentalize how we deliver things. i think it is important, but i think it is overused by the left and the right. host: you are the chief of education in the state of virginia? how did that happen?

gerard: i received a phone call from governor mcdonnell who was looking for someone as a nontraditional candidate. someone that had some experience and that believed public schools still mattered. that would receive an education so i wanted -- to make sure why they worked. i interviewed for the job and i accepted. host: how long did you stay? gerard: i was there for the 2010-2011 legislative session. and then i moved to florida. host: what was expected of you in the state? gerard: one was to implement the democratic governor's agenda and to assign the law the top jobs and we had a commission for higher education of over 25 people on the commission. the goal is to say that if we were going to invest another $100

million, we have changed the way we deliver education and expects more for the dollars we are giving. and so we had people in the public schools and historically black colleges and our for-profit colleges that all contributed. at the k-12 level we strengthened our charter expandedw and opportunities for virtual learning in the commonwealth. one was a college laboratory school. it was a bill that allowed schools of education to partner with the local school system and actually introduce in the case of the university of virginia, they were partnering with buford elementary school and actually introduced stem courses to middle school students. middle school fight had declining enrollment, today you see inclining enrollments.

you also see more middle-class families putting their kids in the school. the big push is that if we want a strong nation, then stem matters a lot. we cannot wait until high school to do that. in middle school, that is something that our legislation was able to do. host: who invented that term? stem? you thei cannot tell person who invented it. you will hear presidents and mayors saying that it is important. i would also say that steam is important and add the letter a for arts. it was kind of tough to do that work without having an artistic and creative approach. host: george w. bush had this to say. george w. bush: education in america is no longer legally separate.

it is still not effectively equal. quality education for everyone of every background remains one of the most urgent civil rights issues of our time. host: again, urgent civil rights issues of our time. gerard: when president george w. bush signed no child left behind he referred to a soft bigotry of low expectations. when he speaks of civil rights he is speaking in that vein. education is an important civil rights and has an important history but when he made the big push he at least opened up the door for the republicans in particular to see how we can actually use education and data and outcomes to make it better. you will hear me say it is important because it is but that was an example of the right using civil rights and the way the left has used it and yet in

2016, we still have a number of challenges. host: you mentioned no child left behind? what did it do? it is a number of things. it will be united states if , we're going to have a competitive nation that we need to make sure it is strong. but they would have to test students and they would actually hold it teachers accountable, especially the how you qualify teachers. and for the first time we were going to desegregate data to see how children were doing. for decades our school systems were able to hide how poorly our students were doing. it was through a number of algorithms. with no child left behind, we got to see it both good bad and ugly. host: you make a speech in 2004, here you are on video. let's see how much of this you still agree with. gerard: ok.

why do i look at school choice? through the system of brown? i was a teacher at the marcus garvey school. when my favorite students walked up to me and said i have to leave because my parents can no longer afford tuition. what we have is a as life would have it, a gentleman walked in with a petition and said we have something called a petition and what we would like to do is get enough signatures on a ballot so that we can push the voucher initiative so that we can get public money to children who can go to private schools. using the example that i had i said this is an option for some students and not all. it is an opportunity that some students would take advantage of. host: where is california on vouchers? gerard: in 1993, i was actually able to get parents to sign a petition and the ballot was presented to california voters

and it was soundly defeated 70-30 and in 2000 a similar vote took place. we have seen the same thing happen in michigan. that is from the california perspective. charter schools have grown but if you look at the voucher movement, it is starting to slowly but surely take place. special needs scholarships, vouchers, we have states doing great things. host: why was it is 70-30 vote? gerard: two reasons, it was anrketed as anti-public-school initiative. people don't want to hear that and it was going to quote on quote take money away from public education. people were still remembering those votes that happened with proposition 13. here is another example of us taking money away. california was part of a very public battle of finance. a case about school funding. between an anti-public-school

campaign, it's not hard to see where we lost. host: here is hillary clinton in 2015. clinton: they truth is the quality and opportunity and civil rights in america are still from far from where they need to be. our schools are still segregated and they are more segregated than they were in the 1960's. host: is that true? gerard: no. it also depends on how you define segregation. i don't believe we have segregated schools. we have racially identifiable schools. to believe in 2016 that we have the same types of jim crow segregation that we had in 1954 is a shame.

it would say that 62 years later, we have made no progress. the government accountability 62nd on may 17, the anniversary of brown, the did goes qualifying for school lunches has grown. now are their schools that we should try to work with? absolutely. at the same time you have economists and one report , totified that the 1980's the 2000s racial integration in , neighborhoods have gotten much better but that is driven by a number of factors. i would not say we have segregated schools. i think we have schools with a number of problems but to , believe we have jim crow today is ludicrous. host: people are worried about segregation in schools, why do

we have 100 historically black colleges? gerard: that is to assume they are segregated. take a look at my alma mater howard university. my oldest daughter graduated a few weeks ago where president obama was the commencement speaker. the first five graduates were white women. we graduated white's long before public institutions allowed us in. number two, we graduated a number of african-americans who were able to integrate freshens other than teaching and nursing. third, we helped create the black middle class. federatedor more institutions then military institutions are segregated. host: when you went to howard it didn't enter your mind that most of the students were black, was that your choice?

gerard: absolutely. a friend of mine was a howard student at the time. coming from los angeles and have a different background, it was a chance to have real conversations about education, not just race alone. now, has ard ben and strong record of providing leadership. i was invested in education that would help me integrate the world with ideas you probably would not hear otherwise. host: here is condoleezza rice with a short 20 second comment. condoleezza rice: we need to get parents greater choice , particularly for parents whose kids are trapped in failing

neighborhood schools. this is the civil rights issue of our day. host: again, civil rights issue of our day. why are inner-city schools failing? gerald: dr. rice comes from a family where her mother was an educator. she knows firsthand th attending segregated schools and today she is the purpose of one of the finest schools in the country, stanford. from humble beginnings to stanford. we often have under resourced schools, funding is a challenge even the federal and state and local money in some areas, sometimes you have more than suburban schools. number two, we don't always have the best qualified teachers. the number of teachers may teach other subjects. we need more engagement.

it is one thing to say we want provide parental choice and rights. of the same time, we need to demand more responsibility. we often overlook the role of families. host: we live here in a district area. there is a lot of federal money and it still doesn't work. why? gerard: the late 1990's, i had a chance work for d.c. public schools when arlene ackerman was the superintendent, before we moved forward with vouchers and charter schools. d.c. had a few challenges. number one, there was a list of heavy-handed with congress trying to decide how it should govern schools. there was a federal and local debate that goes back for over a century.

while there were high concentrations of poverty you still had pockets of success, whether it was a high school which then and now are still producing students. and then third, challenges that resources went to the right place. it wasn't because d.c. lacked a lot of money. there were a lot of school systems that they wish they had that kind of money. but it is moving in the right direction. graduation right, while still a national shame, is higher in 2016 than it was five years ago. host: there is not a great difference between what teachers are paid in this whole area. there is a difference in what is spent per student. in your experience, how much does the money part of it matter? i believe money matters.

where you invest money matters more. there has been a debate on the money matter going back to the 1960's, going back to the james coleman report in 1966. on one side of the fence you have marty west and dr. peterson at harvard who would say that money matters but if you look at the investments we have made while the increase in local money you see a pretty flat test score. on the other side of the fence you have others who have said that while that may be true when you actually take a look at states

with increased their spending for students in different states you have actually seen a gradual higher graduation rate and higher probability students will earn more in the workforce. and the likelihood that you will also see -- this is what heather schwartz mentioned this in her report, you are going to see better results. show less text host: if you are asked for advice, what would you say? gerard: if it means such what to remit the barriers to that first-generation students from a separate are able to get to school, there are two things i would recommend. allow students to matriculate if they had the requisite scores and course word work to do well. the s.a.t.t while determine how will you will do your first year, it is not predict if you will graduate.

there are certain courses you should take, math, science, english, that should be in place if you are going to be successful in college. to accept them without accepting the curriculum obligation, is selling the effort of affirmative action, something i support. you have three daughters, how old are they? gerard: my daughter was 22 graduated from howard. the middle is eight and the younger is five. host: what have you learned from these three daughters about education? gerard: i was fortunate to be in a stay-at-home dad for one year with the oldest daughter and the youngest. one thing that i learned is the role that technology has played an expanding what students are exposed to. what the older daughter, cell phones as we knew it. computers, if you take a look at the middle daughter. it

-- she is eight years old now, she is able to manipulate my iphone and ipad in ways that some 30 years old cannot simply by watching what i was doing and me showing her how to use it. technology has changed what students are exposed to that and i am excited for that. the five-year-old, we put her in a coding camp at age four because we believe code is important for the same reason that stem matters. it is starting to train her brain on how to think like ian engineer, how to look at mathematical computation in different ways while being creative in the process. so we're going to have girls who think that steam matters. brian: you were partway to florida and you spent 15 months there. what was the title of your job. gerard: commissioner of

education. pretty much the same role. implementing the work of governor rick scott, as well as other things. florida is a much larger state with more poverty. qualify for free and reduced lunch and 50% of them are african-american and hispanic. while it is technically a poor state, the tests scores on nape and other measures in some ways outperform white and middle-class students in other parts of the country. wi-lan there is you can invest in low income kids and others and get great results. i also learned that in the state where we had approximately 72 school systems there versus virginia with 132 systems which

was a little more rural, there was a different set of politics. brian: who controlled that? the theit goes back to 1960's. department of education has an database. you primarily talk about math and science they will assess students in elementary and high school. we also have nape for urban school systems, where d.c. is what we call a trial for a tutor system. so we assess students, how are they doing in math, english, language, arts. it is called a national report card because we are assessing students nationwide. brian: let me read from an article after you resigned from florida and it is a lot of

numbers and i just want to break this down. robinson's tenure as educational commissioner was marred by controversies over florida's test-based school accountability system and failing scores on the florida comprehensive assessment test. in may, school officials had to pass an emergency role to lower the passing score for the states 's writing exam after realizing 73% of fourth graders and 67 % of eighth graders failed this year's fcat. changing the passing grade to a 3.0 from a 4.0 on a scale of six cloud 80% of fourth graders to pass on par with 2011's --" 27%. i don't expect you to know those numbers or most of the people by how does this work to somehow qualify for more money?

gerard: when jeb bush was governor of florida he made education one of his top priorities and the goal was to test students and see where they are and invest in people and places where they needed to. we identified that on florida's first assessment, a number of students failed. i had to say, wait a minute. it is not as if students suddenly became illiterate and were not able to write in a matter of 30 days. something happened. we identified we raised standards in the assessment model for students. we communicated this to the school system but in the communication process we dropped the ball and as a result, tests were assessed one way and students were assessed

another way and it was a challenge. i had a phone call with my board. when there are over 700 people on a phone call when you're talking to your boss, you know it is going to be quite interesting. we decided to bring in an outside person to do in internal assessment and found out that i was in no way sponsored will for malfeasance. we identified that our testing company, pearson, as well as the who putn nebraska together our assessments did nothing wrong. we translated a new score introduced the tests. ,it went forward in better shape and students did well. host: i want to show you a speech in june of 1952, 64 years ago. right in the middle of a presidential campaign. i want you to listen to general eisenhower, he became president of the united states and what he

said at about what the nation was facing back 64 years ago. general eisenhower: the gradual usurping by the central government by functions that belong to local communities and individuals. the stifling, the springing out of this process, are manned by experts and self-perpetuation. -- in self perpetuation and -- to no profit in terms of the national welfare. bureaucracy, helpless to lead all nations to prosperity will -- older nations to prosperity will do no better in america. host: what do you think about what he said about self perpetuation and the bureaucracy.

gerard: there is a need for bureaucracy because there has to be something in place to help us administer policies at the state and local level but there are challenges with that as well. another president, ronald reagan, mentioned that bureaucracy was the problem. this has been a love-hate relationship with bureaucracy going back to the 1800s when we were creating a new nation. there is a need. i have seen some great things, particularly in department of education, people hate departments of education. they see them as bloated, not useful. in fact having worked for two, i , tell you they do to great things. they serve as a central agency to articulate the will, policies, and goals of the administrative class in your capital city to the lower levels. it serves as a conduit between superintendence and school s and schoolndent

boards ansd the states. superintendents and school boards have a tough enough job trying to deal with what is testing mandates student , achievement. think of them trying to do that simply by themselves. so there is a role for this. at the same time, we could streamline our process. brian: speaking of school boards, president carter signed legislation's that he proposed to create the department of education. it became a department in the year 1980. at the beginning, it had a $12 billion budget. it now has a $70 billion budget. what have we gained from this? gerard: the department of education is a great cases three case history on what we can expect from bureaucracy. even though the department of education and -- gained executive level status in 1980, the department as we know it has its ordinance going back to march of 1867. shortly after the civil war. the push was to do two things. have the department of education collect national information to

figure out what is going on within the states and second to implement policies, ideas, and funding where they could. it went through a number of changes. at one point it was in the department of interior, at another point it was in the federal security agency, and then found a home in the department of housing, education, and welfare and then it became a department in the 1980's. a good case study on how it had multiple lives even though today we still say there is no federal role for education. a summer thing was said in right: with the $12 billion 1968. budget, they intended to have -- there,people working today it is 5000. -- 1700 people working there, today it is republicans have 5000. been almost totally opposed to this.

why? gerard: sure. gerard: they see the department of education not only as a tool to implement policy at the federal level that is thought to be should be left at the state level. number two is curriculum. brian: when that legislation was passed and the national education society was for it, the national federation of teachers was against it. what do you think they would say today, and the biggest unions in the country. gerard: they are the largest combined teachers unions in the country, one of the larger worker unions in the country. it is interesting you mentioned nea. the nea would have naturally been for the creation of the department of organization. the organization was filed in 1857, 1 of the few nonprofits to hold onto their original mission. one of the things they did the carter campaign was to endorse a president, which they had never done before. they said, we will endorse you if we can find the department moved to an executive cabinet

level position and they published a report on why that would make sense. host: here is john lewis, a brief 10-second comment. john lewis: education is a right. it is a symbol right. stand up for it fight for it. , speak up for it. brian: comment. gerard: i agree with him. what better person to talk about the importance of civil rights. spent physically having his head bastion for fighting for people's rights. i agree with them. brian: here's the other part of it from john boehner. john boehner: education ought to be the civil right of the 21st century. finding a way to allow parents and children to have a better shot at education i believe in the core of who i am. brian: civil rights in the

century. where did the republicans and democrats differ most? gerard: they all say the same thing. it depends on which area. john boehner when he was in speaker supported the d.c. opportunity scholarship program, which the current administration supported, wh hopefully whoever is elected next will fully fund its program. someone on the school choice side of the fence as released to public schools, many democrats support charter schools as well as republicans. you find demarcation in private school choice. republicans more often than not support vouchers in washington, d.c., milwaukee, louisiana. also special needs scholarships. but you also have democrats have done that. if you look at the louisiana voucher program today which is statewide, when it began in new orleans it was to democrats who said this matters for the hometown of new orleans.

you look at milwaukee, someone like holly williams, a democrat. at one point was financed campaign person for jesse jackson when he ran for president in the 1980's. she, working with tommy thompson, said vouchers are important. you look at washington, d.c., the city council person for education and mayor anthony williams, democrats who said, vouchers matter. it is more nuanced then that that if you had to draw line, charter and voucher. charter, republicans voucher, democrats. brian: headline, moynihan and the modern american family. i will read it back to. you. the moynihan report -- and this was it 1964, the secretary of the labor department of the time -- the report was not the first federal inquiry into the challenges of black lives. its findings struck shocked the nation.

what was most striking was the culprit moynihan identified -- the weak family structure in black communities. the birth rate of all unwed mothers was 3.8%, by 2013, it was 40.33%. i will put up on the screen some of the numbers you have. the percentage of black children raised in a single-family home, 71%. hispanic children, 53%. what happened? gerard: the number of children growing up in single-parent homes has doubled. same for hispanic and same for white families. on one level that is a challenge. the same time you see an

, increase in the number of students who actually graduated from high school, a number from single-parent homes. the number of students completing college within six years -- while not as great as we like -- a number of those students who might be first generation are coming from single-parent family homes. there is one challenge would like to see, from a economic homesoint, is to parent and my colleague at aei, bob , door, writes about the subject. we cannot assume poverty is a and weor destiny cannot assume growing up in a home with just one parent. we have seen things change for the better. my goal in life is to be a good public servant whether is a schoolteacher, scholar at aei, or as a regular average joe. host: how long is your contract with aei? gerard: until they want to get

rid of me. host: do you have a bucket list? gerard: writing on education is one area. it is more nuanced. i spent some time focused on prison reform, particularly the role of reentering citizens. those who paid their dues to society who are coming back into their communities. over 600,000 a year. are they academically prepared to participate in the labor force? many of them are not. also a particular focus on making sure that in the military, on the academic side, we strengthen the military. you find generals who published a report and they identified that nearly three or four americans between the ages of 18-24 prime age are unable today to qualify for the military because of health challenges and academic challenges, that is a national security issue we do not talk enough about so i am

, writing on that as well. i am also weighing in on the role of civil society. it is unrealistic to expect public schools and private schools to do the jobs by themselves. it takes faith-based communities, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and others to rub their arms around wrap their arms around teachers and schools to make society better. brian: i want to show you a couple more visible public figures talking about education. one is the just-recent secretary of education, arne duncan and we , will put that back with new gingrich. two different parties. arne duncan: the fight for educational opportunity and civil rights always has been and always will be inextricably linked. newt gingrich: i agree to work with reverend sharpton because i thought he came out with the most important big breakthrough. that is that learning has to be the number one civil right of the 21st century.

brian: another's civil rights education. if president clinton or president trump called you into the oval office and said, if me give me three or four things we can do right away that will improve the education of people in the poverty community, won't what would you tell them? gerard: number one, invest money into teachers and programs that work and we have reach urge research showing exactly how to do that focusing on teachers and support staff in hard to serve classrooms. number two, i would expand public and private choice to include charter sponsors tax , credit scholarships and education savings accounts if we were to expand the opportunity. third, you, as leader of the united states, should raise

the expectation that if education is the civil rights issue of the century, then surely the idea that knowledge and ideas matter should equally be part of your equation. ryan: would you serve as a public servant of the president trump? gerard: yes i would given give it consideration. brian: here's a democrat that served in the george herbert walker bush administration. diane ravitch, you undoubtedly know. let's watch. diane: it was stealth, nobody even knew who was on the committee to write it and at the time it was written, very few people were aware was being written. no participation, no effort to bring in people who are specialists in early childhood education. no one who was a specialist in education. kids with disability. there were no teachers on the writing committee. you have mostly, out of 27

people who wrote the common core standards, almost half of them came from the testing industry. the problem with common core at its basis is the problem with no child left behind. it is the assumption that the answer to our problem lies in more tests, harder tests, more standards. that is not our problem. our problem is that almost 25% of the kids in this country live in poverty. gerard: i want to link her point to a couple videos. you showed the one with the speaker and secretary duncan. when secretary duncan left, i posted a note at aei congratulating him on his tenure. i think what he did, particularly in taking on the democratic party and a very strong union, to really push for teacher evaluations and professional development, want i want to commend him. you made a link with speaker gingrich.

he is one of the brightest, smartest, forward-thinking people we have in america. i remember many years ago he decided to not only support the idea of school choice but i believe he also stood in front fredericke of douglass to make the point to not only push for black empowerment but the idea we can lift all people from educational slavery is not something new to the united states. it is something that we pushed for many years. she has worked both sides of the fence, one-time supporting choice and then calling into question. we should have an honest conversation about testing but to think you are going to get rid of tests will not happen within the next 20 or so years. brian: if a young person comes to you and says, you know, i had admire what you do mr. robinson, but what should i do as a student? what would you recommend they do now? gerard: read widely.

books that you would not traditionally read. number two, i would say after you complete high school, you do not have to go to a four-year institution. you know, we are created in our culture a big push to put to and through college. i believe college matters. i graduated from college, my oldest daughter graduated my , other two daughters will as well. but the push that shows to do a four-year overlooks the fact there are a number of post secondary options. consider a trade school. consider going to a community college for an associates degree, and licensure, a certificate. secondly, maybe take time off. get a job. if you have an epiphany and what, i want to improve my skills, you could do some of that online. look at it not as a four-year institution but as a lifetime endeavor. and make sure at least once a

third, month go and see something of what we call culture. a play, a musical, opera. even a debate, just once a month. brian: if you had the name the most important person in your life besides your parents who'd , you pick. gerard: the dean of library services when i was a student. one day unbeknownst to me while i was backing his groceries at a grocery store at ralph's, he acknowledged he had seen me and invited me to stop by his office and talk shop. i did not take him seriously, i i walked past him and extended my hand. i gave him a wimpy handshake, he squeezed my hand and pull me back and said, i said hello. oh.nt, he said, come to my office. let's talk. for the next couple years at least once a month we would talk in his office. there were times i consider dropping out of community college. making decent money at a

full-time job. could've made a decent living. he said, listen, just because this is where you began does not mean this is way have to end. elaine moore was in that equation as well. she was my counselor and a graduate of howard university. she played a tremendous role in helping me matriculate howard university and same with my daughter. same with probably over 100 not only at howard, but at historically black colleges. brian: you were doing 40 hours a week bagging groceries? gerard: yes. i bagged groceries, i cashiered, meat rooms with a high-powered hose. unloaded 18-wheeler trucks. did everything you need to do it a grocery store for three years while also a member of the union. ryan: why do you think the gentleman that saw you and said, come talk, what you think he said that?

gerard: because someone did the same thing for him. he grew up in philadelphia, he decided to go to college, worked his way through. he decided to get an education and library science because he believed that ideas matter. brian: have you done this to anyone else? gerard: absolutely. i have been a mentor to the students i have taught, i do it for students who work at aei and for my daughters as well. it was done for me and i will do it for others. host: our guest has been gerard robinson. gerard: thank you for having me. it has been an honor. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments, visit us at q&a.org. programs are also available as c-span podcasts. announcer: if you liked this program, here's some others. michelle easton, founder of the clare booth luce policy institute talks about the organization and its efforts to advance women in conservative leadership roles. dr. wayne frederick on problems facing historically black colleges. and madeleine sackler shares the story behind her program, the lottery. it depicts the proces process in the city children go through to attend charter schools. you can find those interviews

and others at c-span.org. couldn't five g mobile clinic to db right round the corner? the u.s. must leave the world's development. ,onight, on the communicators kathleen abernathy talks about 5g and what it means for the u.s. the expansion of virtual reality, self driving cars. abernathy: we are going to push ahead to ensure that the u.s. maintains its global leadership. that is terrific for the country. i would argue it is essential. it is one of the areas where u.s. global leadership has determined -- tremendous

benefits. >> watch the communicators tonight o at 8:00.

>> flags are still at halfstaff capitol today, to remember those killed in the dallas shootings. agogress, with just one week for the upcoming break. that expected to continue until after labor day. the republican national begin in a et to week.