forward and i can only imagine, we only won one state, vermont. we only had about 500,000 people on our interest -- on our e-mail list. we had a sanders campaign that won 22 states and 8 million people and 75 million called. with that, want to put some questions our panelists. pretty straightforward, i like to start with the alex, what did you learn from the sanders campaign as we move forward? >> i would say the biggest lesson i learned from both starting off as a volunteer and entering the campaign is to have trust in grassroots organizing and your volunteers.

this movement would not be possible without the millions of people and volunteers that stepped up and demanded change. regardless, if bernie is not our president, is sets a precedent that is being organized, at least in my lifetime, in the generation that was able to watch bernie debate, shows that people are powerful. it is to make sure, i'm beside the amount of trust we had within the bernie sanders campaign and relied on grassroots volunteers to do the bulk of the work. >> maria, you are running for congress, locally here against lacey kelly. what are some of the lessons you learned from the sanders campaign? >> i love this question. here's what i would say, be real. talk to people. have a relationship with people who are on the ground. communicate and translate.

something that happened, all of you know, it is called ferguson. the ferguson uprising. our congressman did not show up until day seven. like four days after teargas and two days after buildings were bernie. congress was on a five-week rate. they take a five-week break everything august. i'm dealing with a challenger who is riding on the coattails of his father. between the two of them to have served for 48 years. that is one family that has served for 48 years. when things went down in our community, that was like one of my first wake-up calls that we have some serious issues that are going on and we need someone who is present. not only someone who is present, but someone who is willing to communicate the challenges that people live every single day and to be unafraid to communicate

those challenges. when i said at the beginning, be real, people want to hear the truth. despite who you piss off, people will be thankful for that. you can tell me when to shut up. 39 filibusters this year on lgbt rights. [applause] we got into another crisis. it is radioactive waste that has been in our community for about seven generations, excuse me, seven decades. our congressman has not done anything. i was serving as a school board member and state senator because i wanted to give extra time to my community that i live in. i resigned from the school board when i found out the number of cancer clusters that we have in

the area that i represent. all of a sudden, get this wake-up call, i should go visit st. louis. there is nothing more pitiful that having an absentee congress member. he grew up in maryland. he went to elementary school in maryland. he went to middle school in maryland. he went to high school in maryland. he went to college in maryland. all of a sudden, there's a seat that was open and st. louis and he ran for a special election. then there was another seat that was open and he ran for a special election. then his dad resigned and then he ran for congress. he has been living in maryland for quite a long time. i think what is important, what bernie brought to the table, is that you should always be among the people and always speak the truth. if you make a mistake here and

there, you are speaking the language of the people. never be afraid of speaking the language of the people. someone will understand, and we deal with racial issues pretty badly here in st. louis and missouri. i thought at one point there were a lot of white folks who were upset with me for translating the issues that my constituents were concerned with, but what i found out is that they were also grateful for me standing up because they saw that the silence that we had been living and breathing for quite a long time is the same type of silence that they had been dealing with when it came to radioactive waste contamination, where children are getting sick. >> i think one of the things that you're saying, it is not just about truth, you are also saying it's about action. when you have somebody who is an

absentee who is not in what they need to get done, it is time to have someone stand up and take action. that makes a lot of sense. i think one of the things that, barrier smashing about the sanders campaign is the way in which it broke conventional wisdom. one of the big ways i think conventional wisdom was broke was this concept of that you have to run to the middle. what we we saw was that independents want to hear a bold articulated vision. they are not looking for the middle, they are looking for somebody that inspires them. when you look at a 22-point victory in new hampshire, it was based on that. it was the independents that gave the 22-point victory. i think the interesting way in which it smashes conventional wisdom. and when you think about utah, there is often the idea that this is a red state, no way a liberal could win, no way to

sanders democrat can win utah. the conservative democrat should be up to walk away with that race. what do you think you can learn from the sanders campaign and how will it impact the race? ms. snow: what i've learned is you just have to speak what you believe in, be honest about your beliefs, don't try to do this moderate, just say they want honesty from the politicians. a lot of people are trying to frustrated with politics as well. they see anger. the state of utah has this reputation of being conservative but also really young state could you look at the population, 18 and over, 46% are millennial.

but participation is really low. 2014 election, state of utah had about 28.8% you tolerate. the second lowest aside from texas. we are forfeiting our government to conservatives because a lot of times, a lot of democrats, democratic voters, they feel like there's not a choice because utah democratic party, they were these self-described conservative democrats, almost indistinguishable from republicans, not quite as extreme, but end up by losing by 30 point margins because they don't offer an alternative. i think it's important to offer a real alternative. we will stand up for a living in wage. we will stand up for women rights in the u.s. to be teaching energy. we will give you affordable college. we will try to address the racist criminal justice system. the people of color being treated unfairly.

we will fight to offer a new vision for the country and look at the future instead of the old ideas. saying the things that people want politicians to say, saying those things. the guy i run against, mike lee, not that popular. the most recent polls shows he only has about a 38% approval rating. a lot of people think he is a lock for reelection. every step of the way, people have underestimated me. i won by a 19% margin despite being outspent four to one. [applause] >> 19% outspent and won by speaking the truth. ms. snow: mike lee had like a million dollars, which is not a lot for a senate race.

a lot of people don't think it is competitive, no donations coming in. i think a lot of people have realized, as a bernie sanders movement, the next step in the political revolution is we have to start supporting down the ballot. the senator from utah has just as much power over your life as a senator from texas or florida, if we want to change our dialogue as a nation, we need to get more progressives throughout the country know matter where they are from. the more progressives you have in congress, the better the progressive agenda and fighting for the policies that bernie sanders talked about. to have $15 minimum wage. affordable college. we need more progressives in congress. every victory get is another vote. that is where we need to go. >> thank you. [applause]

>> continuing on this theme of this conventional wisdom is the idea that in red states or purple states that somehow democrats win that about a more moderate or conservative, nobody on this panel has probably experienced that conventional wisdom more strongly than congressman alan grayson because he is someone who was elected and is working with the establishment every day. mr. grayson: or against them. >> what we have seen as being tired establishment is sort of working against you like bernie. we're talking about your absolute terrible opponent in the primary. what do you feel about your learned from the sanders campaign that you are taking in implementing into your senate race?

mr. grayson: i'm pleased to see that there's an audience for progressivism. the sanders campaign is the most successful progressive presidential campaign in the last 50 years. if anything deserves applause, it is that. [applause] mr. grayson: it gives us hope that the democratic party can be the home of progressivism. it seems that there is definitely an audience within the party for progressive values of justice, equality, and peace. there's also consensus within the swath of the party that the system is rigged and something needs to be done to change that. the second thing i learned from the sanders campaign is this -- voters want elections to be about something. we've got into this rut in america were political discourse consists also kind of ad hominem attacks, and we end up choosing between the lesser of two evils.

there's no doubt that both candidates are both evil is always seen are negative ads about them for literally weeks upon months before the election takes place. that is simply not what people want. people will remember is that sanders saying enough about the damn e-mails. people want to hear about what we need to do to make our lives better collectively and how the law can accomplish that. that is a message that is fundamentally progressive. when the system is broken, we need to take the system over and change the laws and make things better. the thing we learned is this, a democracy is not quite dead yet. we are not quite at the point where the oligarchy gets every single thing it wants . what happened with the sanders campaign established a new paradigm in the wake of citizens united regarding campaign finance and that turned us be

very important. before he ran for president, senator sanders was the only member of the senate who raised most of his campaign funds from small donors. for two cycles in a row, i was the only house member out of 435 us to raise most my campaign money from small donors. we saw that happen at the presidential level. while the campaign was actually going on, senator sanders out raised everybody else. he out raised donald trump by 7-1. that was just trump reach into his pocket so does not count. there is an alternative way to run for president, senate. i'm the only senate candidate who's racing with his money from small donors. 150,000 contributions already. if you want to go to and make it contribution, i will not stop you.

this is what we need. i look around, and i see 434 members were largely taught by special interests, lobbyists, multinational corporations, billionaires, people who want something for themselves. democracy can't survive that way. after the citizens united decision, when it was rendered, i said that if we do nothing, then you can kiss this country goodbye. sanders campaign is a sign that we are doing something, that there is a possibility that we can have a functional democracy in this country. i find that encouraging. >> continuing on the theme, what do we need to do to get the

the vision for america that so often the democratic party make the decision that i'm not as bad, look at the other guy, he is terrible. vote for us. midterm elections running on the values. those are losing battles we have lost over and over again. 2014, we won races where it was a bloodbath across the board but the races we won were the ones where we talked about a vision for america. jeff merkley, al franken, brian schatz. those of the people who won. how do we do it? help do we break through and make it happen? mr. grayson: i think there is little or no hope of that happening. it is appalling to me to see how

corporate bought and paid for democrats to control the process. i'm a progressive and they want to see a right-wing democrat running for marco rubio. he can't possibly win on the issues, so what they do is they attacked the personal. they are not good at defeating republicans. we have lost 14 seats in the years, but they do have a certain flair for getting under the skin of democrats in finding ways to undermine progressive democrats finally run for office and we have seen all along the country. donna edwards campaign is a good example of that. i don't think these people are ever going to wake up and realize that what they're doing is bullish and that they have cost us 900 legislative seats in the country. it is time for a new generation. i will give you an example of this. bill that has 175 co-sponsors to expand medicare.

why is it that instead of adopting something like that the party adopts a platform to extend the x.m. bank for foreign corporations? the same way the democratic party is in the process of adopting a platform, and thank goodness for bernie fighting as hard as he did, we that form the house of representatives and the number one item on the platform is defeating isis. i am sorry, but in my district peoplehe average wage is low are way more interested in a , $15 wage and they are in defeating isis. the entire leadership, nancy pelosi aside, the leadership has been corrupted by money. its completely inured to

own failures. it is not interested in polling. an interesting poll, that showed that when you actually asked the public where you stand on issues come on solid specific progressive proposals, overwhelmingly the public is with us. the leadership is not with us. my only hope is to see the leadership replaced. quite basically you are talking about we need to get a complete and total overhaul. we have to elect new candidates across the board which is why misty is a fantastic example taking on republicans and maria's is a fantastic example taking on bad democrats. i feel like you want to say something else. mr. grayson: in my lifetime, the most progress the progress that -- the most progress that was

made was when howard dean was in charge. we need an outsider. we need an outsider who can come in to the party and to recognize -- >> we have candidates here talking about pushing that in new ways and if their candidate who is doing it in an open -- >> it has been in the making for at least a decade. if you are familiar with zach exley, it was his idea and it snowballed into what we have today which is the unified national campaign to elect 400 plus candidates, and this is for the 2018 election, we have some existing members who should stay in their as well as others will jump on board if we give them a reason to.

we are aiming to generate the small and not of volunteerism small dollar donations by funneling people through online fundraising and get people excited about running those 400 congress members in 2018. qualified, orwell good enough? alan really wants to know the answer to that question. >> i think their people like senator sanders and elizabeth warren who have consistently shown that they fight very hard for not only progressive values but what their constituents really want, what the american people want. that is why we say 400 plus in addition to the fact that it is wonky with the way that different cycles work. cracked excellent. i want to open it up for you all to ask questions. we have microphones here. we would like you to come up to the microphones. in advance, the microphone

actual will not be amplifying you internally, as microphones are for the video. still speak loudly when you talk to the microphone. if you have a question, get in line behind one of the mikes. maria, you take on this mantle of being a sanders democrat and what has that meant? actually, before i say that. i love your breakfast of champions right here with red can of mountain dew. that is a candidate working hard. >> this is my second one. >> what has it meant to be a sanders democrat in your campaign so far? >> there are so many people who were on the ground running who

have been inspired either by ferguson or by bernie sanders and what i have chosen to do in my satellite is support many of the candidates who are running on a progressive platform. before there was this movement for congress, i'm doing a movement in st. louis for progressives so we can take out some of these establishment democrats who do nothing and don't show up. [applause] that is what i'm doing. i have my own bernie movement and it happens to be the legacy that i want to lead. because we need younger people and people willing to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work. what it means is challenging your party as often as possible. as a senator, i do that. if there is enough room for a pro-life democrat, then there is enough room for a ferguson democrat in the senate and congress.

>> misty, do you have anything else to add to that? ms. snow: the issues about fighting for living wage and affordable college. utah is the youngest state in the nation. a lot of people make up things about me being the first trans-person. i'll be the first millennial in the u.s. senate if i got elected and the first woman in the senate from utah. there were some other firsts that are probably more important than the fact that i'm trans. i just happen to be trans. i want to the issues out there and give a voice to important issues that i feel we are not voicing of the utah democratic party because nobody was talking about things like $15 an hour minimum wage or reproductive rights.

some people told me they voted for me at the convention because i was the only candidate those even talk about issues affecting people of color. you tell there are important but 79 percent of the population is white but we do , have a prison population that is disproportionately minority. we have problems with that. black teenagers getting shot by police. a 17-year-old was shot and severely injured by police. he is not ever going to be the same because of that injury. that is not just an issue that happens in the east or the south. it happened in salt lake city where unarmed black teenagers are being shot by police.

an overreaction, so we need to adjust the way we do our police in the country. we need to reform our courts. it is a huge problem, so i want to give voice to a lot of these issues. inind these issues resonate utah, because there are a lot of op about these issues, and the young people who have not gotten involved in the political process, but are getting excited. are gettingple excited about me talking about the same issues. i am hoping to get a lot of support in the fall, because i feel like we can beat this race. pulling 37% tos 51%. i got 30% of the vote. 2010 confident -- 2010 candidate

got 37% of the vote. i feel we can close that gap if i continue to build name recognition and fundraising. i would like to get a lot of fundraising from organizations and hopefully that will continue. i would like to try to keep my not take a lot of money from corporations. i would like not to have to do that. i think bernie sanders the right idea. >> fantastic. another great pitch. >> mistyksnow.com. >> let's get a question. >> good morning. how are you doing? i like to wish you well on your campaign.

this is my question -- how do you propose to make sure health care workers get health care in the state if you work 10 hours a week and the minimum wage here and you do not qualify for benefits? . >> let me tell you, to answer your question, and address one of the differences with the establishment party a member of, it was suggested by our caucus that we file a minimum wage bill of $10.10, and i refused to sign on to that bill. let me tell you this, i would be recalled if i filed that, i filed the $15 minimum wage increase this year and i said i cannot hold my head up and go back home knowing that i signed on to a minimum wage increase of only $10.10.

the second thing, i look at your t-shirt, for the last 12 years, i have been a huge proponent of home care workers, and let me tell you why. i used to work for the lieutenant governor we did an assessment on nursing homes, and more people of color stay in their homes as they age and we are looking at the population of people and the folks who are serving those individuals as well, and it is absolutely true that you do not get paid a livable wage whatsoever for the work that you do. i'm guessing you are a member of sviu. it is the fastest growing union in the country. they are also one of the unions that have stood up for immigrants and refugee rights before any other union. what i would encourage and also try to do my best and have done

and worked towards is ensuring that you do have coverage. but i also have to tell you that, we have not passed medicaid expansion in the state of missouri, and it is costing, this is money that should come back to the state to benefit my mom is having to deal with the challenges presented to her because she is depending on the aca, so i get it. deserve more and i'm working to make sure you have your own health care benefits and whathat you do other folks do is the work that people are unwilling to do. remarkable howy you give of your self to help the people who have stood for us for so long and i want you to

have your health care and you careve to have your health and when you see those advertisements for the increase of minimum wage, ask if it is $15 or $10. just because someone says let's increase the minimum wage, ask them are you talking about $15 or are you talking about $10? but thank you very much. >> good morning. about how can we make official state legislatures progressive? one thing the right has done really well is taking big money and putting it in small districts where it can have a really large footprint. one of the most inspiring things to me about the bernie sanders campaign was they sent money to 21 other candidates i doing tandem fundraising, including state legislature candidates who

with one e-mail sent of small dollar donors were able to fill up their edges probably for the next few cycles. how can we encourage more campaigns that do have large fundraising lists that are able to mobilize the national progressive small dollar donors where thatraises money can make a huge difference? how do we make this common? >> can i add this question so i can all go along together? maria mentioned this and might shoot me for saying that i filed my mec report yesterday, so it is public knowledge now. one thing happening here in missouri to talk about and to talk about maria a little bit is i am the executive director of naral pro-choice missouri and

i'm running for committeewoman here in the city of st. louis. since maria cannot spend the money in her state general assembly campaign, she has been giving it to 25 different candidates who are my age and most of them younger running for committee positions to take back our party at the state level where missouri plans to talk about abortion, policing in our state or a myriad of other issues that progressives care about. maria has taken the money she cannot spend on her congressional race and given it to us, so we not only help her against an incumbent, but we do that grassroots work at the most a sick level to change our party and change our state. we not only have 25 young people

running for party positions, but we have bernie's campaign manager running for state rep and another young man who isroduced bernie at a rally introducing us and i think we were all bernie supporters, but we were all black lives matters -- black lives matter activist before we were bernie supporters. i could never pay maria for what she has given back to our community and how are the rest of you taking that kind of leadership? [applause] >> thank you for your leadership for running for office in a party. that is critical. one of the things we can do is to recognize our job is not just to get elected to congress or to the senate, but to get elected to school boards, to the water reclamation district, up and

down the ballot, there's huge sometimes they have a bigger impact on people's lives that a member of congress can have. oftentimes, congress is stagnant and they don't move forward and evenantly corporations and corporate democrats win in the small town races, so it's not just that they are having a direct impact on your life that building themselves into a position to run again for higher offices. it's a triple up effect that is not great. we can have people like maria who come from the state senate and run for member of congress or a member of house of representatives. that is what we need to support from within. this seems like a perfect question to expand upon.

i completely agree with what you said and that's why a brand-new congress is running that unified campaign to generate that number of contributions on a massive scale and get people excited about taking over the primaries and getting progressives into office. i think the way to do that is grassroots organizing and small dollar contributions. the getting to work part and inanizing is super important addition to the money being spent because we can allocate a good number of resources to that . i think that is important and crucial as we expand and right now, a brand-new congress is focusing on congress. but bernie has created local organizing groups in every part

of the country. a brand-new congress is about yes, we are aiming for congress, but through doing this, we are a guiding the flame for people getting involved in a local level, state level and at a federal level. that is whateve brand-new congress is trying to accomplish and we will continue dollarhat by small contributions and electing people like misty to represent the american people in the demographic makeup of the united states. >> is there anything you want to add to what she said? >> maria 2016.com. a question about brand-new congress. i live in eugene, oregon and there's a strong group organizing the march on the same day as your kickoff event there.

we have been trying to get a hold of somebody and not getting much response to make sure we don't step on anyone's toes. i'm sure you are overwhelmed with stuff and there's a lot of us out here who would love to help. feel free to reach out to field questions like that. just to address that heads our internalilding infrastructure and we are almost completely grassroots powered. i'm the point person for that and just to give a taste of something we are working on is building an infrastructure called the ground support team that we are hopefully going to be expanding. that's hopefully going to expand what's taking place in washington, and hopefully in california and other states

already. i will be reaching out to you with other members of this panel if you stay around to talk about it. philadelphia, your local kickoff there is on july 28. there in the streets and it seems like a fantastic event to go through. this is commented that a local event. >> we have two events going on. we have one that is on the 22nd and the other is on the 28th. i will be there as well as tons of other volunteers that are up in and we are meeting philadelphia to sell shares and answer any questions. we will be there prior to the convention and all the way

through, so maybe we can talk about it to make sure you can make it to one of those events or we can talk about other strategies at the general meeting. impact that i am not sure has resonated deeply across the board for a lot of all, the impact of the sanders campaign, the incredible amount of grassroots support that is beyond the kind of metrics that are often reported on. what gets reported on his $220 million raised from small donors because that is what the ec class is obsessed with. the e-mail list and that kind of thing. aspect wasimpactful the way in which the sanders campaign manager standing gauged and empowered volunteers to work with them and for themselves in

excellent ways. what is exciting about the -- about the sanders campaign manager what will end up in your new sanders spinoff and long-standing organizations with volunteersls is that -- we have a lot of people that are engaged in want to do things. we have a democratic party that for decades said we all want to hear from you come we don't trust you to say the right thing and what's exciting about this campaign is the way it has caught -- has empowered volunteers and take control into their own hands. that is why you can have a media for six months tell you that your campaign is over and you can go on to win 20 more states. i think that's an important lesson. >> i said i was a digital fee met -- digital field member and

i just want to emphasize that point -- almost the entire campaign was powered by volunteers, not only in their individual space when it came down to a day: made it nationally online through other digital platforms and thousands of volunteers and those phone calls are significant and is the back bone in what we are trying to do. have not only people who an involved in politics forever, it is people ready to get to work and fight for the chance that they want as long as you are willing to step up. >> let's take the next question. a question for congressman grayson about every wasserman schultz and what the bernie revolution has done to

decrease her status within the party. for charles, you seem to want to downplay the list and the treasure that is that list. how would a brand-new congress get access to that list? great, i think it is a panel and so interesting hillary clinton's name has not come up yet. [laughter] >> my understanding is that there is a new executive and theyor at the dnc are performing a lot of the functions of decision-making. still has title. i'm not sure how much is involved in day-to-day decision-making. overstate her

authority all along and the toisions that tended infuriate certain parts of the party were not hers alone. it is not a sophisticated view of how these things happen. there are powers behind the throne that are not visible. since she was in charge of the party, she is the person people see, but to personalize of the way it has been done because of the decisions regarding the oversimplify the actual process by which those are made. you look at some of you like constantlyan who fought with the party and did power and you look at the 50 state strategy worry have the notorious meeting with rahm emanuel and chuck schumer

where he walks out of the room says fucksed off and you. his responses i'm still going to do it. there's something to be said for the leadership for that. not taked and she did that role. >> the party under howard dean. to asserte willing himself in that role. it was a completely different style and sense of what the position really means. inbie has decided to excel fundraising for the party. some people think that's a good idea. some people think it's utterly pointless because we have no message that people want to hear. so what do you do?

you buy a lot of ads and it's just drivel. when howard dean ran the party, running the party meant something very important. when you run a real republican against a fake republican, a real republican is going to win every time. that's a lesson that has not been learned why the democratic party. >> i'm going to -- i'm watching that race in florida very closely and debbie wasserman schultz has something in common she my opponent which is supports the savings and loan industry. i don't know if you have read the new york times article recently but we have more savings and loan operations than walmart, starbucks and mcdonald's put together. that's because of people like my opponents and others like debbie wasserman schultz.

but neither one of them want to debate in front of the people they represent. missouri,t here in when you have an incumbent family, 448 years, people deserve to have an open debate. [applause] to address the magical e-mail list, i think it is -- the way that i view it because brand new congress doesn't have the list, we have to earn every supporter that we get. be inason we are going to philadelphia is we are doing a 100 city tour to actually go out and talk to people and find out what they are saying. it would be nice if we had such a big e-mail list and it would help with our fundraising, but i'm excited to work with

grassroots and work with local organizers to find new ways to talk to voters and get to know everyone. my perspective to that question, something that regularly and -- regularly happens among the professional classes we talk about it like it is a list and it's not. it is people. there are people attached to those e-mail addresses. sanders has 8 million people on his list, that those people but are out there and if we are giving a bold vision and real leadership and doing the real people willhose .elp find us the more sanders can highlight people that are doing network, the better and we hope to continue to partner with sanders as we move ahead and my hope is

some of that means we get that exposure and get those people in the door. but hopefully people are expired by real vision and real work and hopefully they will come to you. that's why bernie sanders has gotten to 12 million votes even as he was getting fought every step of the way by the establishment in every possible way that they could. >> in 2014, 60% of state legislature seats were opposed and 40% of them were completely uncontested. i live in springfield, oregon, and in the past three races, there were 26 races. 18 out of the 26 were unopposed. don't act too surprised because in ferguson, you could have had voter turnout out 100% and it wouldn't matter because no one

ran against him. these downddressing ballot spots, i came there because i started a website called run for office.org. tired of thed elites in the democratic and republican parties holding onto information for how to get on school board, how to get into the special districts. democracy for america, where were you? you are not developing the bench and in st. louis county, i just did the research and the entire county is now on our site. four out of five of your minutes pala these don't even have a website. guys, we have a lot of work to do down ballot. i'm a big opponent of open data,

so i'm not going to give this to any specific group. comfortablerely that you guys get to pick these candidates. what are your metrics for that met -- metrics- for that? >> we are going into the community, so if we are looking districts, we are talking to the people they actually represent. not a brand-new congress thinking there's going to be a final decision-making process but it after long talking with .he community members it's not only career politicians, its members of the community we don't even know of yet. >> i'm more concerned with how you are going to make a choice and it happens in each and every one of your districts. all i do every day is look at election results and the same

goes for you, congressman grayson. those people you neglect to get on the ballot, those are your voters. if someone is running for school board, you can count and extra 50 votes for those. the bottom carries the top. and ie questions definitely want to give other people a chance to answer those questions. quick stat.ll you a 36% of the people who live in the first congressional district live in poverty. who go to children public school are on free or reduced lunch. the african-american community is experiencing an unemployment rate of 17%. run for office, let me tell you about the colorization of campaigning. when you are black and if you

are a woman like me, you'd do not get support from the party. and here's the other thing -- when you look at how people are doing things, i am not itountable to the mayor -- is my turn. is what is about to go down. their people after ferguson who have can up who are challenging the system, the people i'm supporting running at the lower ballot, it is because they have been fired. instead of yelling at us, realize that because of the man and a young black several deaths of young black men and young black women, we are inspired, we are engaged, we are waking up and we are not going to tolerate this anymore to it is our responsibility help those who want to work from the grassroots and go on and

support every other person who is out there who does not have an opportunity. here is our problem. and it is still my turn. we have five people who want to run for mayor in ferguson and that's a beautiful thing. we have people running against each other who have been inspired for the same seats to multiple seats. who am i going to support or am i going to support both? in some cases, i'm going to support both. you are not perfect and i am not perfect. nobody in here. we are all children of god. is toe should be doing help people who have no voice. passion yourgy and have and look at those numbers and help build a strong party and oppose the establishment at

every single turn you have. oppose the party, oppose the establishment, but we have our problems. >> the bottom line is we work hard across the board to elect candidates across the ballot and i'm not going to be defensive year -- we can't support everyone all the time, we can't force people to run and we cannot require somebody to run. we tried to empower people as much as possible and we have been successful at it. think of what the scale of what you are asking. when you think of state legislative races, there are 3000 state legislative races in a year. we have a cycle budget 10 million and there's only so much we are able to do for each and every candidate.

we encourage people to run as much as possible. we very much encouraged people to run for lower levels of office and we have been successful. one thing that has set us apart from other organizations is we do things like we supported one of our very first candidates in 2004 and her race, nobody else was supporting her. we went out there and worked our butts off and we continue to do so as we have done year after year. i would love to give you 3000 stories like that and tell you we convinced someone to run for mayor and tell you we have filled every school board race, but the reality is that's a very big lists and when we recognize

that's what we are trying to make happen, it's way more likely to happen. but it takes a lot more than just a few people, the staff in burlington or the resources we have to make it happen. >> it is bigger than one organization. if anyone running on a progressive value, it's to inspire people who do not have those resources to get up and start organizing and filling the seat instead of waiting for someone to come and do it. that's part of the reason democracy for america is holding someone who is a competitor of ours and saying be involved because there's room to be involved. york, from brooklyn, new not a place where we have

trouble with democrats. we have many, many democrats but if you talk about more verses better, we've got more. we need that her. better.ed [applause] i'm a member of the kings county democratic committee and have that much power, just an iota over zero. one of the things incumbent democrats who are not necessarily friends of progress use very much to hold on to their power, the gerrymander. i was wondering if you guys could address these structural in thees we face insurgency. >> do you want to take that as

someone in the structure and trying to challenge it? >> what do you mean by structural challenges? >> there are certainly structural challenges within the party, but i'm referring specifically to the gerrymander. both parties love it because it helps them keep their incumbents and come -- incumbent. >> that's right. we have the last primary in florida because it favors incumbents. but with regards to gerrymandering, you are right. i'm hoping there will be some new supreme court case before a liberal supreme court that will end up once and for all. i think gerrymandering is unconstitutional and violates the equal protection law and the clause that requires the federal government to guarantee a democratic government in every state, that there is a separate clause that does that. i'm very committed to this.

we had a tremendous success in florida and it took years to get through litigation. but we had something called fair districts florida in my state. [applause] if you look at their record, you will find the first five figured check they received was for me. i was committed from the beginning to seeing that happen even though i have a blue district and inevitably, my district got watered down when it went into effect. but what we need is we need the government to reflect the values of the state. we reached a point in florida where even though florida is the ultimate herbal state, we have 19 members of congress that are republicans and only six after the 2010 elections who are democrats. oft's partly a function dirty money, but it's almost entirely a function of gerrymandering. they packed huge numbers of democrats into a tiny number of districts and a got away with it.

the current delegation is 12 republicans and five democrats in a state that has not gone republican for a presidential election in a quarter of a century. tenor publicans and for democrats in ohio. wholeole company is -- country so badly gerrymandered that we have win by 18 points before we get to even. that's almost entirely a function of gerrymandering. it's a horrible situation and it needs to end. one of the things that has been done is that we put it on the ballot. we put it in our constitution to prevent gerrymandering. it took roughly eight million dollars from start to finish to get done and a million

signatures. not every state has referenda like florida does, but where you do, the power structure will never reform itself. we have a of that is situation where the voters do not pick elected officials, elected officials are picking the voters. >> the point i was trying to make is where i come from, democrats love the gerrymander. we have cozy arrangements between our state assembly and our state senate, that the democrats get the assembly and republicans get the senate and everyone is happy. >> that is definitely a problem. i want to thank you for your questions. unfortunately, we are out of time. i want to encourage those of you still have questions to make sure -- we are going to be here for a few minutes. don't hesitate to come up and

chat were a few minutes. i want to give our panelists a chance to give a quick closing statement. there is one burning thought you want to leave us with, let's do it. >> go team blue. [laughter] [applause] >> you don't want to see your website? >> you don't want to forget it no matter how hard you try. >> i want to thank everyone for coming. i was thankful for the opportunity to come be part of this and a chance to speak to you. to checkge all of you me out at my website and as we saw with bernie sanders, don't underestimate the power of small donors in large numbers. [applause] .> note be silent

speak up. there are often times that people want to put us in a box as progressives and they want to label us and say we can do this or we can do that. reject that. you have an obligation as a progressive to speak up, stand up and fight as hard as you can with every single tool that you have in your corner, use it. i am running for congress. i'm running against an establishment opponent who takes money from the payday loans and the rent own industry. and it is also someone who'd does not champion the same kind of policies elizabeth warren does. my website is maria 2016.com and i am asking you for your help. [applause]

i at go everyone's sentiment on stage so far and i am humbled to be on stage with so many great senators and people running for congress right now. hismessage i want to leave leaving yourself and never give up. anyone, including a 21-year-old from connecticut, a 16-year-old from missouri, anybody can get up and stand up. >> we want to freak away from this program and take you live now to the heritage foundation in washington, with school about to begin in may parts of the country, panel of scholars talking to a school voucher and choice in education. >> you can send questions and comments anytime through the presentation by e-mailing speaker at heritage.org and we

will post it on the heritage homepage following the presentation for your future reference. leading our discussion is our research associate in education policy. she works in our institute for family, community and opportunity. she earned her bachelor of arts degree at the college of the holy cross and is currently pursuing a masters in public policy at george washington university. she previously worked here at heritage as an intern and research assistant in our then policy innovation. she spent the year teaching sixth grade at national presbyterian school. please join me in welcoming mary clare. [applause] >> good afternoon and thank you so much for joining us for the milton friedman voucher idea. panel ofined by our

experts to talk about the work of milton freeman and school choice in america today. the public school system raises significant challenges. families, particularly low income families must send their child to a school based on the income and zip code they live in. children trapped in underperforming and often times dangerous schools. elton friedman change the conversation about education in america by jesting education financing need not be tied to its delivery. this, he opened the door to freedom and innovation in our schools and gave parents they hope that they would have a say in their child's held -- child education. american parents have more options than they ever have for. 43 states in the district of columbia have an act of charter school. five have active savings programs and 21 tuition tax

credit programs range across 16 straight -- 16 states. of american families now have a choice in their child's education. this is a tremendous victory for our families and much of that success is due to the groundwork laid by milton friedman. 1968, a farin better alternative to political control is to introduce competition and schooling to give parents a real choice. wewould later argue that have so far only seen early fruits from giving parents a choice. the best is yet to come as competition markets work that wonders. beste beginning to see the come to fruition. growing innovation has led to customizable options. milton friedman had the incredible foresight to make this prediction. the history of the school choice

movement has been that of empowerment. when given the choice to leave and underperforming public school, parent sees the opportunity to exercise this choice. here to discuss the legacy of milton friedman in the school choice movement, we have an incredible panel of experts. i will start by introducing patrick j wolf who is the chair and school choice department in the college of arkansas and is the integral investigator of the d.c. scholarship program and is leading a national teams conducting a multi method evaluation of the milwaukee rental choice programs. he has authored and co-authored two books and two dozen articles and chapters on school choice and campaign finance. resultsesigned, managed that employ a wide variety of research numbers including

experimental and qualitative investigation techniques. a 1987 graduate of st. thomas, he received his degree from harvard in 1985. next, we have virginia walden forest, a visiting fellow at the heritage town nation. she took up the cause of school choice after her son received a private scholarship. she more -- mobilize thousands of parents and culminated in the d.c. option scholarship program in 2004. next, we have jonathan butcher who served as the education director for the goldwater institute. he researched education policy of school choice program at the state and national level. he was the director of accountability for the south carolina public charter school

district, south carolina's only turner school authorizer. he worked as a school choice demonstration project in washington dc in milwaukee, and wisconsin. and familyeducation policy here at the heritage foundation. he has appeared on fox news and many programs. his commentary has appeared on fox news and the national review online. healed a masters in economics from the university of arkansas. finally, we have lindsey burke who researches and writes on role education issues at the heritage foundation. reducing federal intervention and empowering families with education choice. and has appeared in

various e-zines and has spoken internationally and has published evaluations of options for various policy foundations. she also currently studies education policy as a doctoral student at george mason university. please join me in welcoming our panelists. [applause] >> thank you. if we could pull up my presentation. there we get. i'm delighted to be on this panel to talk about milton friedman's vision for parental school choice and the impacts private school choice on various outcome areas. there's a definite arkansas

theme to this panel. lived inity of us have the great state of arkansas, the wellspring of expertise on school choice. place likeonderful arkansas, we have rules and one rule is when any employee is a policy issue, they have to issue a disclaimer, for they are speaking themselves and not as a spokeswoman for the university. aery time i open my mouth, to public policy issue. is reviewoing to do the latest evidence about the effects of implementing friedman's vision of private school choice. first, i'm going to re-fleet

talk about friedman's idea and what we might expect to come from expanded parental choice and then talk about a meta-analysis of the test score affects poor choice, some research on the attainment effective choice and finally, talk about a fresh study on the effects of school choice on reducing crime. out, 61clare pointed years ago, an economist name milton friedman came up with this idea of universal parental school choice. friedman's argument was government should fund k-12 education because an educated citizenry is good for society and necessary for self-government in the united states. thethat does not mean government should be the sole provider of k-12 education, that other providers including private providers should be

inouraged to be involved delivering the service of education, even if it is funded by the government. ift might we expect alternatives to a public school monopoly were offered through k-12 education. we might expect more access to quality schools do to the innovation hypothesis. that a sickly granting schools grantinghat basically school autonomy should lead to higher quality education. but another way school choice could help is through what is called the matching hypothesis and that is one size does not sit all in education. kids have different learning styles, different strengths, different weaknesses, different educational needs.

basically, aaron no children better than anyone and if they have a variety of schooling options, they are likely to match their child to a school that better suits their needs than if they were determining where the child were to go to school. ofrd, there's the advantage competition over monopoly and this is well entrenched in the theory of professional economics. faceow when organizations competition, there's a stronger motivation for them to improve and there are incentives to operate more efficiently. just asd expect to hold it holds in every other aspect of society. parental choice, students should learn more, go farther in school, and have better lives. sayhat does the evidence about the achievement effect of

school choice? ande are lots of studies they vary in their rigor and end in their conclusions. this set of research is described as mixed or worse, certain people cherry pick the studies that reach the concur with and we see statements like that of saul stern of the conservative leaning manhattan institute's says education reformers ought to resist unreflective support for theories that do not produce verifiable results in the classrooms. he is talking about school choice here. or moving to the other side, the left leaning center for , thetion policy achievements are similar to those of their peers.

there is ravitch says no evidence that students in voucher schools get higher test schools -- higher test scores. she doesn't say the evidence is weak or questionable. she says there is no evidence. there are no sdies showing student in voucher schools get higher test scores. these statements and others and our own curiosity led to tostanding students of mine theorm a meta-analysis of effects of two -- of student test scores through vouchers and credit. aat a meta-analysis is systematic compilation of all the reliable evidence that

speaks to a particular policy question. a prosecutor does before taking a major case to trial. they collect all of the evidence because a full go set of evidence is going to point more clearly to the conclusion should be then just bits and pieces. seekss what meta-analysis to do, to bring together all the evidence to point to a single conclusion. are able to draw from 19 experimental value is where students are randomly assigned to receive a private school opportunity or serve in a controlled group. the studies were drawn from 11 different programs across the united states and around the world. variety ofreat

cities like new york city, small cities like toledo, washington ec here in the nation's capital, great colombia, so a variety of places where private school choice has been evaluated using gold standard studies. when we pull that evidence together, do we see? these are the results. left, youe on the far see the results for math, the results of reading -- let me explain this graphic. the zero line is parity between the voucher students and the control group students. the lines that go horizontally connectheir basically the average effects year-by-year

from accessing private school choice and the vertical bars around them are the confidence intervals. so we know from public polling, there's this confidence interval . vertical bar is above or below the zero line, we see the result is statistically significant. noteast 95% confident it is due to random statistical noise, that it is a real effect of the program. the first few years, there is an adjustment time and access to school choice leads to a slight decline in math scores in that second year. declinehird year, that is gone and students are in a by access toth

public school through vouchers and the positive effect grow quite large and very clear by the fourth year. in reading, the effects are even more positive. they are even more positive by the second year and grow by half a standard deviation after four years. what we see is that there is an adjustment time where these kids are changing from public schools that have a certain set of expectations and norms to private schools with very different expectations and there is an adjustment time students go through and we do not see immediate positive test scores. run, and thatng is what matters, we see clear test scores gains just as milton friedman predicted. important. are they are easy to measure. maybe we focus on them too much

because there's a lot of social science research that suggests what makes the most difference in a young person's life prospects is not necessarily test scores. it's other scores linked to attainment and a character and behavioral factors. school,ng high attending high school, graduating college, and have a strong effect and particularly avoiding contact with the criminal justice system. for young males in the inner-city, this is the single most important factor that will determine how well their life plays out for them. graduating high school, of waiting contact with the criminal justice system, increase life time earnings by 30%, boost employment prospects they preserve the human and social capital young

people are developing and maintain that person status in the community and their orientation as a positive contributor. these are very important outcomes that are seriously understudied in the area of education policy and we are just now starting to study them in regards to school choice. one of the first studies to incorporate these outcomes was a study i lead for the rest permit education of the d.c. opportunity scholarship program, the only federal voucher program in the united states. we looked at the effect on high school graduation rates for students and what we found is a simple bar chart. of using ae effect private school voucher in d.c. was to increase the likelihood of high school graduation by 21 percentage points from 70% to

91%. the student that lost the voucher watery graduated at a rate of 70%. the effect of using a voucher was a gain of 21 percentage points, a 30% boost over the baseline of the control of 70%. stars,see with the three we can be 99% confident that is a true effect of the program. in d.c.,this not only but in milwaukee and a study i did with a team of researchers returns, this graphic to the approach where the zero line is parity and the blue bars indicate voucher student advantage and the bars below the

line indicate the come harrison group advantage. the public school comparison group, they are sort of the consolation prizes. five-year graduates, there were more five-year graduates in the comparison group because the voucher students regulated at a much higher rate. the comparison students enrolled in two-year colleges at a slightly higher voucherause the students were enrolling in four-year colleges at a much higher rate. finally, the voucher students persisted at a six percentage point higher rate as well. not only did they enroll at a

higher rate because they experienced private school choice, they were well-prepared for that for your college asked variance because they persisted into the second year. finally, we embarked on a study of the milwaukee parental choice program, the first urban voucher program in the united states on the rate of criminal activity for young adults. we use the same for the milwaukee attainment study for students carefully matched to a similar group of public school when they were between 22 and 25 years old, we searched a public database in wisconsin that makes available all of the crime records for every citizen in wisconsin. doyou go to wisconsin, you'd

not want to get arrested because the entire world is going to notice it. searched theo database were looking for names and they did not know who was a voucher student and a comparison student. when we looked at the data, we found some striking results. usedund the students who the milwaukee voucher program had dramatically lower rates of contact with the criminal justice system. there was a 45% reduction in the likelihood they would be accused of any crime. there was a 42% reduction in the likelihood they would be convicted of any crime. they were just not present in the voucher group. a 93% reduction in drug crime convictions compared to the public school group. theft down 87%.

really large reductions in the single factor most relevant for young men. theynately, for females, mix so few crimes that you can't really do an analysis. but we bad always, we are the ones who are at with -- you are at risk and that is where we see the positive effects of private school choice on reducing crime. in summary, what we find from the latest evidence is private school choice boosts test scores, increases educational attainment and steers young people away from crime. there is the evidence but if you want more context, virginia is going to give some excellent firsthand context and i have to throw out a plug, my book choice journey is coming out in paperback this month.

there's much more information about the d.c. opportunity's program and it has a killer forward by senator joe lieberman. thank you all. [applause] >> good afternoon. i love when patrick does the research. i sit here and i am like yes, that is right. research was done, the conclusions, we saw them firsthand and how they really affect kids. the first child i would like to talk about is my own son, which , whow i got -- as a parent was the recipient of a scholarship, and we saw such a dramatic change in the kind of person he had been. a young child who would drop off

to school and then leave, i would go, i dropped him off but he was gone. to really find student athletes. fine student athlete p are the changes i saw him were incredible and life-changing for our family. life change so much. saw children in our community really not doing well in traditional public education. many of whom ended up in the criminal justice system, dead, on drugs, teenage fathers. all around our community, which kind of got me a cited about being able to be a voice for those parents, i was lucky to connect with members of congress who are very interested in

making sure that kids around the nation ultimately were going to be the recipients of a better education. started doing that and organizing parents and talking to parents. my experience of talking to parents in d.c., somebody came up to me right before i went up to talk to a group of parents and said, you can get up there and talk but the parents will not respond. you know, they don't care about the kids. i said i will talk anyway. the response is overwhelming. parents in the audience came up and said we needed somebody to tell us we have a voice in what happens to our children. once we started advocating for parentslarship program, two become a part of

that effort. an incredible program. what i want to talk to you about today are some of the kids. i followed many of them. they live in one of the most troubling sections of d.c.. she was not allowed to go outside. they were in seventh grade and ninth grade. i remember the first time, i said, where do you want to go to school and he said, i don't really care, you know, and kind of dismissed meet here it when i asked carlos, the oldest of the two boys, what did he think and what did he plan to do with it, he said, you know, my mom dragged us down here and i will sign up for it but i will

probably do what i have seen in my community, which is selling drugs or getting in trouble or whatever. he was really dismissive of the program. i watched him four years later .raduate the top student, first african americans did he body -- student body president, graduated with a four-point grade average in boston. mother called me just to have a conversation about the journey they went on and how it the beginning when they first advocating,e of us how she did not believe any of this could really happen and now , heis watching her two sons is a sophomore, just finished

his sophomore year, both of them are doing really well in school. the direction life has changed. they still live in this troubled community but their mother told me that when i saw the children in that community these successful in school, it changed how people felt about the community. there were changes in people's lives. we found not only that it changed the child, who is the recipient of the scholarship program, but it changes the and what they see as every parent wanting their children to be better than they did. it also changes the community. going out and seeing how everybody embraced the kids in the scholarship program in every community we visited. experience wonderful

of jordan light. not necessarily a bad student. she was just really bored. she told me when she was in seventh grade, that her teachers did not get her. ever member thinking, what does that mean? she said they just do not get me . they do not understand what i need. she got a scholarship and also went to georgetown i believe, ,nd graduated the top of her >> japanesetudy was studies. a little african-american kid from washington dc majoring in japanese studies. foruated from overland and the last two years, she has been a translator for a japanese company in japan. over to visitt for the first time in japan.

i'm just amazed at how well my child is doing. those are the kinds of stories we hear over and over again. children who had access to scholar skip -- scholarships, just took a different journey. parents were happy about with we were doing and more excited. my own child graduated valedictorian. people told me, i remember when he was about 12, someone suggested i might want -- want to send him to an institution because he was just out there and not doing well and breaking all the rules. he turned out to be a fine young man. of what themple program has done for the children of the district that i tiffany,exposure to is

a young woman raised by her grandma for whatever reason, and told me when she was 13 that she had to be the hope of her family and i did not understand that. what do you mean? as she talked, i found out she had lost a cousin through violence, who had been the hope of their family and she felt like she had to take on the role. she was there by herself applying for a scholarship. we had worked to help her get through it, but she brought herself there and was determined that she would really do well in and tiffany got a scholarship to syracuse, went to syracuse, did well, and i lost track of her and about a year facebookt a message on

that says, i found you. i caught her and found out that not only had tiffany finished undergrad, but she was working on her phd and she got her phd in june, june 23. month and i remember thinking, that is just the coolest thing i've ever seen in my life. of know, when i lost track tiffany, i thought when i reconnected with her, that she would finish college, i never thought she would go further. so i was delighted to find out. in talking with these young men is women now, what i find they get what an opportunity they have, they understand what

they have to make it in the world. they totally understand that had it not been a chance to go to school that best serve them, their journeys would have indifferent. that pleases may. comingd more of the kids back and talking to us and telling us what is going on in their lives, we started to find out need what they are doing. makeonstantly happy when i a connection with a parent, that the child is doing something extraordinary. we see it more and more these days. as we go around the country, i see the same thing. all of the programs they are out there and i meet the children and i meet the parents. i see there is a specialness about understanding they had an opportunity that other people oftentimes do not get. became a follower watching

what happens with these children. i did not know who he was when i first got into this. involved as a parent and i wanted to see kids do well. as time has gone on, i understand it. we have got to be a part of making sure that every child, in a place where they can thrive, where they can store, watch and the young people in bc that i have kept in touch with, has been an incredible reward for a hard-fought battle here in bc hard-fought to be a battle and we will continue to fight because we had tiffany and carlos and calvin and jordan and many other children who will ,tand up and say, i understand

why it is so important, never when i asked them to come back and speak with programs, -- in programs, never do they say no. they get it. they understand. we will continue to work with those students and remember what was said. for every student that receives the scholarship, they receive success in life. that is important. i is what he said to me. he encouraged me to continue fighting for kids. he and dr. friedman say, keep fighting, you know, enough to keep me going for a long time. that is what we have to continue to do. me research always excites and i always have a copy of the because ihere around want people to see that i am not , so theling stories

research supports what we see happening out here with the children. that is what we have to continue to work on. thank you. [applause] jonathan: good afternoon to time the education director at the goldwater in two, which is headquartered in phoenix, arizona, but active around the country and preserving limited government and protecting individual liberty. about dr.we talk milton freeman, he would be so , asd that his legacy means well as the research and numbers that support the movement, that we are all a part of, that is a powerful legacy. as my presentation comes up, take a moment now. we will go to kenya where john

operates an otherwise nondescript real estate and transportation company. be the mosty advanced way to send and receive money in the world. a telecommunications company created it in 2007 and anyone in usea with a cell phone can the program to deposit money and pay bills and transfer funds to family and friends. also using them to pay employees and transfer money to customers. when one of the vehicles breaks down, he does not have to run amounts of caring large to the areas. call me, tell me your problem and how much you need, and i will >> it. -- i will text it. i do not need to go to the bank when i have the bank in my phone. we remember milton freeman today and his last and legacy and

parental choice in education. what does a mobile banking aroundin kenya, halfway the world, have to do with how u.s. children learn? arizoname back to where, in 2011, the goldwater institute along with our foundation, the american federation for children, heritage foundation, past the nation's first education savings account program. with an account, the state deposits a portion of child funds to the formula in a private bank account that parents used to make educational products and services to purchase educational products and services for their children. arizona, education savings account parents use a visa card to pay for personal tutors for their children, educational therapists, online classes, private tuition, textbooks, and

save for college, to mention a few possible uses. parents will find a tutor or therapist for their child and the provider will swipe across the top of their iphone, just like they do with taxi or some restaurants. map with qualifying tax rates, support level and more, terms that probably mean about as much to you as it does to an arizona parent, when all they want to do is find a quality experience for the child, has met its match. thank you. with the research that lindsay and i have conducted, we found approximately one third of families using an education savings account do in fact make multiple decisions simultaneously with their child account. using thees are accounts as intended. take the idea of a voucher and

transform it from a check or a coupon and put it into a flexible spending account. today nearly one in five isdents assigned to an air -- arizona public school are eligible for a savings account. a quarter million children in the state of arizona. that is not all. today, tennessee announced the opening of their enrollment for education accounts for children with special needs. nevada courts -- would be available to every public -- in the state of nevada, half a million children. states, across five nearly one million children are eligible for savings accounts in just five years in 2011. be proud.n would

as posted on their blog a few years ago, dr. friedman once said the purpose of vouchers is to enable parents to have free is to and the purpose allow the educational industry to get out of the 17th century and get into the 21st century. he went on to say why not let parents pardon the voucher for math and one place in english and science somewhere else. functionally different from vouchers and providing more choices for education and scholarship, they do just that. in program is growing arizona, having doubled in size every year since inception. the coming year, participation will be close to double once again. let's go back to kenya and what was significant. knowledged kenya is the world leader in mobile money. more people are using mobile money there than anywhere else in the world.

20 million kenyans use this service. country, with 60 minutes calls a giant grade of human atm's. the u.s. here, we have been slow to respond to the growth in mobile banking. for the sake of time, we will run. apple of reasons why. for more information, please see information available there. it is available on my twitter page. on facebook, it is there as well. if you do not use any of those, there is no hope for you. in the u.s., there is not enough payment terminal -- terminals at merchants. simply do not have enough hardware. banks are largely skeptical of the new technology and have been slow to adopt it into their practices. we need a sizable threshold of users for mobile banking in order for larger companies like

banks to take advantage of the way technology is changing. we are a highly banked population in the united states. -- a solution to help what is, what was largely in on banked population. this flexibility and access forever -- provided to families these the country, and in five stations mentioned earlier, they are moving us closer to a day when a child reaches a school age, instead of being assigned to a local school district, getting a letter in the mail saying what school you are assigned to, we are getting close to the day where you hand the family and account from which they can choose a public school or private school service, pay for online classes, all the things mentioned before, even pay for massive online courses, a tremendous discount.

from the u.s. federal reserve, thatis the next graph demonstrates how kenya is in fact a leading the world in global payment technology. this chart was similar to economistdone by the several years ago. data was not available but you can see kenya is outpacing even china. so why now and why does it matter for us today? data from the u.s. federal reserve indicates the millennial about age 18 to somewhere around mid 30's, that he does groups on your left here, they are the generation most pared for such a transition from the old school method to a new method of using account based technology to provide a learning experience for their child. these data come from a fourth

usinglment looking at mobile devices for financial services. the current and future generation of parents and workers are more likely to own a smartphone as you see appear in the chart, far more like the in many cases. they are also more likely to use the smartphone for mobile banking, here in the past 12 months. you can see the green bars. also making mobile payments with a smartphone. still outnumbered, but you can see in the graph that the younger generation, we are likely using mobile technology already to make transactions. we are actually not so far away from these convenient mobile payment systems as it may make the united states same. arkansas has partnered with a company that specializes in designing applications for public services call the national information consortium, the company that created a

mobile app that allows for personal property and real estate tax payments, so residents can use the app to pay their taxes. in missouri, the state enables child-support deposits and payments to democrats through a partnership with visa. there are the education savings accounts i described earlier in arizona. nevada, where the program has been suspended in court due to a lawsuit from the aclu, lawmakers are planning to take the next step, even further, with a savings account. benefit while it to manage education financing. a health savings account company, they are a subsidiary of xerox. country, around the they have 1.7 4 billion dollars in assets. the point being this was an established company taking interest in the movement in the education space.

in an interview for my report, the nevada treasure staff explained there were deaths the saving system has key differences from those in another state. report the parents spending quarterly or they reported to the state department of education, which then reviews the expenses to make sure they are in line with the law. families will only receive the next education savings account deposit to use for their children. once officials have confirmed all of the families purchases. againstcan protect fraudulent uses of the account and keep them from shredding every quarter. it is good but it does not stop bad transactions from happening. arizona's agency conducts audits for parents and students after they use the account, after the fiscal quarter. in nevada, educational vendors first -- must first register.

to initiate a payment, a mobile app on a device or a computer. or by visiting a learning provider. check to makes, sure the merchant has registered to participate. benefit while it then directs -- directly from the state for the transaction. happening in the mobile banking behind the scenes and parents will never have to see it. multistepe, nevada's to prevents meant them from occurring in the first place. this is potentially an improvement over arizona's methods. it does not prevent account

holders for making the mistake in the first place. audity, in the first ever general, by the state they recommended that arizona's department of education do more to put the recording -- reporting process, put it online and have invention tools online, like an online forum to prevent misuse, for example. the auditor was pushing arizona's agency into the future and then checking thousands of expenses by hand. for now, a combination of checking by hand and expenses with online register that america created for arizona. just beginning to benefit this partnership, the potential for seamless mobile -- mobile payments and education is notably closer. , at year, i met a gentleman phd living and working in reno, nevada, and he operates a

service in the state, and we -- attending the process i explained earlier about how educators will need to register with the state, it is interesting. it turns out his company is part of a network of tutors that he has a colleague in, of all places, phoenix, arizona. his affiliate there provides services using the education savings account. you can see vendors dividing the service's two are operating in states all over the country. when the partners wanted to make it easier for the canyons to transfer money, they had no choice but to be creative. we had no roadmap but created solutions we went on a pilot slated to take several months took almost two years. state lawmakers have enacted or are considering an education

savings account and uptake in himmler ambitious steps. such courage has already benefited thousands of students around the country. ideas to take the great from dr. friedman and others who had been around for many years, and create a whole new concept for parents have multiple choices and can make multiple visions at one time. policymakers should integrate solutions into payment platforms for the education savings account lawmakers should take advantage of the existing relationship with financial institutions like benefit while it to expedite the availability of mobile payment systems like other services so that consumers and parents of school-aged children can take advantage of them. the effect of such policies can only multiply. as the economist explains, having an established base of initial users, they then benefited from the court -- network effects. the more people who used it, more people sign up for it.

educational service providers can benefit from these effects that helped kenya's program benefit so quickly. of learning is an exciting and hopeful place for people of all walks of life. every child should have access to an education savings account in the same way every child has access to a public school. the future is full of opportunity and we cannot get there fast enough. thank you. [applause] >> thank you all. i want to say a few quick words because we are here in d.c. on on the federal level. we've heard about the research, we have heard real life stories, we have heard about innovative options like education savings accounts, but can we advance these ideas at the federal level, particularly if we recall what known friedman said about what happens when you put the federal and got -- the federal

government in charge of anything. charge of the feds in the sahara desert, in five years, there would be a shortage of sand. with something asas choicent as school programs, put it in the hands of federal programmers? if we think about education financing, the vast majority of that financing comes from state and local taxpayers. 40% of that comes from the state level, roughly. maybe 30 from the localities. and then there is that me -- remaining 10% from the federal level. on the whole we got 90% coming state and local taxpayers and 10% from washington. this is a practical matter if we want to enhance choice options. it has to come