tamari. minnesota brown of your shoebox. rihanna --a with briana bierschbach. "washingtonwatch journal." join the discussion. former education secretary of the obama administration from 2009 to 2015 and is the author of the book "how schools work: and inside account on the success and failures -- what was the impetus for the book? guest: a lifetime of working on these issues. feeling proud of the successes. feeling a real sense of urgency that we have to get better faster. nationto challenge the to thinking about what does it take for us to give every child a great education. host: you open the book with the educate -- with the statement education runs on lies.

guest: that is a tough way to start but i always try to be really honest. a couple lies unfortunately her kids, first we say we all care about education. we all say that. go tony of us as voters the voting booths and vote for a mayor, governor, congressman based on their ability to improve education outcomes? we don't vote on education. i think that is a real problem. we say we got you teachers but we don't pay teachers what they are worth, we don't train them as true professionals or had meaningful career ladders. great teachers transform opportunities. we have value teachers on a different level. the toughest lie that is a hard one to talk about we all say we value children but we allow a level of gun violence in this nation, a generation of kids to grow up with mass shootings, we

don't invest in pre-k like other nations do and get babies off to a good start. that other nations value their children more than we do. in the united states i believe we value guns more than we do our kids. host: you talk about the hard things about education policies. ,ne of the things you deal with some of the administrations put forth -- common core, race to the top and the impact that is seen from those. describe those policies and where do you think you are as far as the results. guest: a couple of points that were important to us. one was investing in high quality pre-k. i would argue that is the best investment we can make getting our babies to a good start ready to be successful. we put more than $1 billion behind that helped hundreds of thousands of children have access. we fought for high standards. we want young people to graduate from high school able to go to

college and take college classes . the pfeiffer high standards was controversial at happy to do that. we were able to get graduation rates up to all-time highs of 84%. a long way to go but that progress. we focused on higher education. a big investment in community colleges. 58-year-old going back to retrain. that is important. $40 billion behind programs to make college more affordable. did that without going back to taxpayers for a nickel. we thought that was common sense. host: a couple of criticisms come from valerie strauss about your book and administration saying what you did focus on was onhing systems that relied standardized test scores a method of assessment experts warned was unreliable. guest: we did ask that a piece of teacher evaluation be based on whether students are learning and we are focused on growth and gain.

when evaluating teachers you want to look at multiple measures. principal evaluations. a piece of teacher evaluation should be how much progress students make each year with them. host: would you say any progress has been made since those efforts have been put in? guest: what we've seen across the nation with all the noise is we've seen the vast majority of states raised standards. more states evaluating teachers in part based upon student learning. we have to professionalize the profession. aonomist at harvard did longitudinal study with millions of kids in new york. one great teacher raised the lifetime earnings of that classroom by $250,000. this is not about test scores, it's about changing young people's lives. less incarceration, less teenage pregnancy, more productive

citizens. host: you emphasize charter adopting common core standards spending 360 million -- that you said would be a game changer. i support guest: good charter schools. i don't support bad charter schools. i think these are adult issues. i call it adult dysfunction. the fight for higher standards around the nation unfortunately now we spend between $7 billion to $9 billion every year on remediation and college. people who graduate from high school, pay college tuition, burn through financial aid, to take high school classes again. noncredit bearing. no one wins. having states set a bar where if students graduate a are actually allowed to take college-level courses i'm happy to have that. the vast majority of states

raised standards which i would say i'm proud of. to?: what would you point guest: i would go right to hire high school graduation rates. 84% all-time high. more than one million additional students of color go on to college. this is not mission accomplished . i'm actually very troubled the current administration you see no coherent administration policy. out of to see us fighting to lead the world in access to pre-k. we should try to lead the world in access to college. four-year universities, two-year community colleges. vocational training. unfortunately do your none of that talk out of the current administration. that should be the ultimate nonpartisan issue. we are fighting to strengthen families, keep middle-class jobs in america, cladding cap pathways out of poverty and the

only way i know how to do that is by giving every child regardless of race socioeconomic status, zip code, access to a great education. model model worked well in the past century. that's not enough going forward. we have to get babies to a good start and if you graduate from high school, some form of higher education has to be the goal. duncan joining us for a discussion on education duncar a discussion on education policy . if you want to talk to him we divided the lines differently for educators, (202) 748-8000. for parents and students, (202) 748-8001. (202) 748-8002 for all others. the book is called "how schools work." you write in the opening pages about your experiences interning with your mother who is an educator and how that shape your view of policy.

guest: my mother started working in the inner city on the southside of chicago in 1961. i was born in 1964. she raised us our entire lives as a part of a program -- we tried to follow in her footsteps in various ways. my sister trains principles in chicago. my mother did that work for 52 years. my brother runs the program now. what we saw, kids happen to be all poor coming from tough family situations. many went on to do extraordinary things. seeing the potential every child has and seeing equities and educational opportunities between my friends i went to school with during the day and my friends in my moms program in the afternoon the kids were as smart, as talented, as committed. my sister and brother and i had

opportunities. quo hasing the status been my passion. i tell a story about kerry holly, a young man who taught me for 15 plus years. grew up like many young people in that community never knew his father. when i interviewed him for the book, told his birth story which i'd never heard before. his mother wrapped in newspaper and from him in the garbage. his grandmother saved him. he tried to get in my mother's program a couple times. he was -- he persevered and went on to be an ibm fellow. i went to great schools. he was the best teacher i ever had. that young man came from nothing but had an opportunity, highest dictations, great support and people who really loved him. host: we have calls lined up for you. our first is from grace, joining us from new hampshire.

grace, you are on with the former education secretary arne duncan. caller: on some of the standardized testing they used paraprofessionals who may or may not have education background to administer tests and also to help kids understand how to take tests. some of them don't know how to jump forward on the problem if they don't understand it. another thing we did here in new hampshire we don't let students drop out at 16. they must either finish high school or be 18 years of age. guest: thanks so much for your hard work. where students need additional help or support you should always provide that but the idea of letting young people not graduate today -- not drop out, that is so important. when young people drop out of high school today they are basically condemned poverty and social failure. eight,s say young kids,

nine and 10 years old no one ever says i want to be a high school dropout. when young people drop out of high school it is always a symptom of a problem. something else going wrong at school, at home, in the community and somehow going to school feels overwhelming. they think i can't handle this, i drop out. we as adults have to step into the gap and not let young people fall through the cracks in whatever is going wrong. we have to find a way to keep them in school. i talk a lot in the book about trackusing on freshmen on because the data shows when freshmen do well, go to school, past their classes, they have a higher likelihood of graduating from high school and being really focused on that, focused on individual students and what their needs are has seen on track rates and graduation rates go up significantly. growing up in chicago if my friends dropped out it was not

great but it was not the end of the world and they could get jobs in the stockyards and steel mills and make a good living and support the family. we know those jobs are gone and never coming back. the goal can't be high school graduation. there's got to be some form of education beyond that. trade,ar universities, technical vocational training. if we could do that for every child, we open up a new world of opportunity for them. if we don't, the limits get pretty severe on what they can do. host: dennis, go ahead. duncan, in myary family we have a tradition to go to religious schools. i'm from a family of eight kids. we went from kindergarten to high school. my three kids went, my sons two kids are going. we don't have 175,000 nuns

working nationwide anymore. it costs a lot of money. $110,000 minimum to put a kid in a catholic school from kindergarten through 12th grade and if you look at an opportunity cost, and i want get into what that means from the point of the viewers it's like a quarter of a million dollars the opportunity cost because instead of putting that money somewhere else where it makes money you spend it on tuition. i researched the school thing for about a year. i have tremendous respect for you. i know you are a basketball player to. i've read about this for like a year and i would like to know what is the compelling government interest that should say i can't follow my religious beliefs which say i must put my kids in catholic schools, what is the compelling government interest that says the government must pick the schools my kids go to?

guest: i don't think we have a compelling government interest, not quite sure what that means. there's an important separation between church and state and the goal of local government or state or federal should be to try and provide a great public school option for every child. whether it is traditional public school are fantastic charter school out to be pragmatic and have good schools. where parents would prefer children to go to a faith-based school they have the right to do that i just don't think that is the government's obligation. host: where did you go to school? guest: the chicago laboratory school. therew up on campus, went lucky to get a fantastic education. as a private school connected with the university of chicago. my children went to the arlington public schools for seven years. public schools in chicago before we left and now my wife works there my kids are starting high school there.

host: you are an administrator from 2001 to 2008. one of the things emerging then and now, rapid violence. more situations of mass violence. what do you think that does for someone going to school especially in chicago's case? what would your policy be in reversing that? guest: this is a tough topic. there are many things i focused achievementsademic , budget issues were tough labor-management negotiations. but honestly, all of that was easy compared to the level of gun violence. during my time, though 7.5 years on average we lost one child to gun violence every two weeks. thank god none of that was in schools. but on the bus going home, in the community.

window, one the shot. died. it is beyond heartbreaking. nothing was harder than going to those funerals, going to those children's homes, going to classrooms where there is an empty desk and tried to make sense of the senseless. i kept above my desk in chicago a drawing by young middle school boy that he gave me of him there's a ladder and fireman going to rescue someone and the caption he wrote on his drawing was if i grow up i want to be a fireman and you think about that if i grow up when i was little it was when i grow up. deferred gratification and things long-term but if you are just trying to survive every single day that is like a foreign language it is hard to think about that when you're just trying to make it so i'm obsessed with this issue. i'm working full-time to reduce violence in chicago.

-- we had an amazing day friday really we built a playground for kids in the community wracked by gang violence where two groups have decided to put down the guns. ofin man who -- eight months no violence. they said please told a playground so we have volunteers come out and do that we have a lot of hard work and chicago ahead of us to create a climate where kids can grow up as kids and play and be safe and grew up free of fear and trauma. host: this is victor. itaught school for 26 years taught geography. they came out with this common core test it was the teachers hated it. it was a disaster. i have grandchildren now that are in public schools. elementary grades.

their test scores on reading are not that good. only oneers are saying third of the third graders can pass common core. the test is invalid. does not measure what it purports to measure and they use the test to get rid of the teachers instead of getting good teachers, keeping them and developing them they're using this test to keep the price that they pay the teacher because of the teacher has tenure they get more steps and make more money. that test is a disaster as far as i'm concerned. it does not correlate the iq to the achievement either. it's not an achievement test. guest: i beg to differ with you on a few different points. states pick how they evaluate students. i think students should be tested each year. i think there are states and districts that test too much. tell the story in chicago public

schools we're taking illinois state test but we were also taking the iowa test of basic skills. our kids lived in illinois and not iowa so we eliminated the test. students should be assessed annually. whether they are gifted, average students, students with special needs or learning differences. we help everyone get better. while the lies i talk about in the book is we are historically told children they are on track to be successful because they do me down standards and they were in close. the young man i worked with named calvin who was a junior when i started tutoring him, he is gotten good grades, on the b on a roll, he wanted me to help them get ready for the ac t and sat and about half hour into working with them figured out he was punctually -- functionally illiterate.

played by all the rules, stayed away from the violence, tried to go to college and in his junior year found out he was not even close. one of the most insidious lies we're trying to challenge. host: michael is in minnesota. you are on. caller: good morning gentlemen. i'm a graduate from the west side of chicago. my question was to you guys how about this no child left behind and i had another comment about what do you think of what do you think of the diminishing roles that the pta is not established in the schools today? guest: no child left behind was the law of the land. this aggregating data did

looking at each individual group of students, white students, latino students, asian students, native american students tossing how each group did in a school not just looking at averages and sweeping some of those real caps on to the rug. we have to tell the truth. having said that i had huge problems with the law. i lived on the other side of it when i ran chicago public schools. what i believe as a nation in terms of policy is we should be clear about what our goals are. the goals that we have so that when young people graduate from high school. actually allowed to take college credit bearing courses not having to take remedial courses. we should be clear on goals. we should be loose on letting districts and states achieve those goals and what works well on the west side of chicago may not work as well in rural montana, may not work as well in california. we should be innovative, we should look at what great

educators are doing to help , helpts, help schools districts achieve high standards learn from that but that's what we try to do in fixing what i on the was a broken law role of parents and glad you brought that up it is critically havetant and we as parents to be full and equal partners with our children's teachers we need to be turning out off those tvs and video games and devices at night helping students concentrate work on their homework and when we can partner with teachers and not have cracks great things happen for kids. when we as parents say to schools it your job to educate them we do our teachers and children a great disservice. host: how do you improve a school system, subtracting money. most administrators would say more money. what are all their alternatives?

guest: i will always argue everywhere that education is an investment. the best investment we can make as a nation, not an expense. we need to have results. we need to hold ourselves accountable for getting students through high school. we don't always do a great job of that would invest in high-quality pre-k sure students have a great k-12 education andng sure that colleges opportunity i would argue for free commuter college. a republican governor has done that in tennessee. he's trying to keep good jobs in tennessee knows he wants an educated workforce so education is fundamentally an investment not an expense. i talk about our schools being community centers. so often those nonschool hours and times for anxiety for parents. today.d like them his if schools could stay open 12 hours a day -- that is not the teacher working 12 hours, let's bring in the churches,

.onprofits, the ymcas think about our schools. 100,000 schools all over america. they all have classrooms. they have libraries, jim's, some have swimming pools. i don't belong to me or you or the union or the principal. they belong to the community. are amazing physical assets. we had about 175 schools, community centers. butjust academic enrichment arts and sports and drama and debates for kids. we served often three meals a day. for parents we had esl classes ged classes. counseling, potluck dinners. schools were children and their parents were learning together. if schools are commuter center's great things will happen for children. that is people pooling resources coming together looking at the school building not as a school but as an asset for the

community and how we all over together to make up home for kids and their families. host: on the money side how much does it cost the taxpayer and what do you think it accomplished? guest: race to the top was a $4 billion investment over four to five years which sounds like a lot of money and is a lot of money. we spent its hundred $50 billion each year on k-12 education so a tiny slice of that. race to the top was an incentive for states to race standards to work on turning around underperforming schools to be very clear and honest on data to think differently about how we support and evaluating teachers and it was an opportunity for states to come forward and we had extraordinary interest and controversy from states around the nation. did ont funding and we the k-12 side and we also did it on an early warning challenge for pregame. i said earlier we were so

pleased to put more than $1 billion behind pre-k which our department had never done before. it was not enough. we were not able to get more of our republican colleagues in congress to back the kind of investment in states we would've liked. i tell a tough story that we have 36 states apply for that. we had funding for 18. one of the states we were not able to fund was mississippi. the governor then was governor .ryant, staunch conservative he and i might disagree on many issues but he was devastated that we could not fund mississippi's pre-k expansion program. so was i. if we look at any measure, mississippi is 49th, 50th, no one needed more pre-k the mississippi. while a strong conservative republican governor wanted access to more federal dollars his congressional leaders from mississippi were fighting us and we were not able to fund it.

the disconnect between the dysfunction in d.c. and what i saw traveling talk 50 states visiting mississippi, that dichotomy between what people really wanted and how they were living in the real world and what happens here in d.c., that distance is troubling. host: were there other aspects connected to race to the top? guest: many challenges and pushback from the left and right. we were challenging the status quo. the idea that we had to increase high school graduation rates, the idea that we make sure high school graduates were prepared for some form of higher education beyond that, we got pushback from the left and the right and that was ok. some criticism is more than valid, more than fair. things he would do differently in hindsight. host: arne duncan joining us with his book. let's go to edward. you are on with our guest. caller: i have so many thoughts i want to share quick. -- mr.duncan, thank you

duncan, thank you for serving in the capacity you serve them. it is really important education. i live here in new jersey. is tradent to say, why education not part of our curriculums? we don't have trade education. plumbers, welders, electricians coming up. point, with charter schools are used to watch: was show all the time and will talk about education in the black community and charter schools. i would be upset with charter schools. why are they asking for funding from the public? they are private, not public. i believe the move for charter schools was born out of our -- the public schools failing us so now we are turning to other efforts. certain kits that can get in.

i don't know if i believe in the charter effort. if we can support our public schools and go that way charter would not have to exist. host: we will talk on those topics. guest: thanks for calling. let me take your questions in order. on the train of young people we could call it vocational education career and technical education i think we can't do enough of that. i tell the story in my book of a school that historically was a failing school that no one wanted to go to. they did some of the traditional trade, auto body shop, woodworking. a fantastic principal came to the school and she changed the definition of what it meant to be a vocational school. she kept those traditional a creditt she also put union into the school and young people worked in the credit union so if you wanted to cash a check or whatever the community

came to the school. she put a functioning veterinary clinic in the school. had cancer,if you going through chemotherapy and lost her hair, you could come to the school to get awake and to get support. so school that had been shunned by the community became the center of the community by teaching traditional trades but teaching other things as well. that school became high-performing, ultimately -- blueuld written ribbon award winning school. i would argue we need it not just in high school but in six and seventh and eighth grade. the final point i would make on is it more careers or more college? i think almost always an education that is the wrong question. it is always both and. we need more young people prepared to go to college and be

successful and we need more people prepared to go into the trades. if you are paid a plumber recently as i have that is a fantastic living. if you've sent your car to the shop it's a fantastic living to be made. it's never about tracking students saying your college material or not it's about here's the world of higher education, what is your interest and how do we help get you ready for that. is important. on the issue of charter schools, charters are public schools. i am a supporter of high-performing charter schools. we put significant money into learning from them. i went to the national charter school convention and said there are charter schools that are terrible and need to be closed down. there's nothing about the name of the school that tells me

anything about quality. we as adults, parents, taxpayers, citizens, need to make sure we have great public school options available for every student whatever the form or label might be. host: there's been debate about streamlining government and one of the proposals that came from the comeau laney, an idea -- mike mulvaney, he makes this justification saying we think that makes sense because what are they both doing? they're trying to get people ready for the workforce. sometimes it is vocational .raining guest: i think it's a bad idea but it's the thing the administration puts behind it. host: from our line for educators, sean is next. go ahead. caller: thanks for taking my call. the first one is regarding how

school funding is structured given there are vast discrepancies and how money is spent in the state. how can the federal government play a role in funding inequities? the second is built off the charter question from previous vouchers ando on special education vouchers. when the student takes a special education voucher they forfeit their rights to ide a protections. i was wondering if you could speak to why that is and if there's anything the federal government can do for that. guest: these are really thoughtful questions and you have a great high. i wish a lot more citizens were focused on voting on education. republican and democrat. is a hugely important issue.

for me the hope of public education is that it is the great equalizer. that young people regardless of race and socioeconomic status or zip code if they work hard, if they challenge themselves, if they get a great education it is a new world of opportunity available to them. .oo often that is not the case so much of our funding in public education, it is about 40% to and onlythe state eight to 10% at the federal level. so much of the funding comes from the local level. taxes based upon property what that means is by definition the children of the wealthy who live in wealthier communities get a lot more spent on them than children who come from poorer communities. 85% of my kids lived below the

poverty line and 90% of my children came from the minority community. we received less than half the money each year to educate our kids and districts like wilmette who were just seven miles north of us along lake michigan. we sued the state because of those disparities in funding. we lost that suit but it is fundamentally unfair that the children of the rich get more spent on them than the children of the poor. when we fail to close that divide we in education exacerbate the difference between the wealthy and the poor. we don't close those gaps so we have to challenge at. the goal is to give every single child in the country access to a great education seen as an investment, not an expense. the second point does not make sense. what wisconsin seems to be doing if what you're saying is accurate. i'm not a fan of vouchers.

i want children to have access to great public schools. students are forfeiting their protections under the ide a act that does not make sense to me. maine, you arem up next. caller: thanks for taking my call. two quick statements for mr. duncan i would like him to respond to. first off let me say i have great faith in public schools. one thing i do want to say, i think nowadays parents abdicate too much responsibility to teachers and i don't think that's fair. i don't think take -- i think teachers are supposed to teach or doot discipline them anything that parents are supposed to be doing. i think parents expect teachers to do what families are supposed to do and that does not leave too much time to teach.

the other thing i want to say, i don't think schools are teaching kids to think critically too much anymore. i think that's having a great effect on society. i graduated high school in 1976. i'm old. in high school we touched on controversy all subjects. we talked about the vietnam war and women's rights and civil rights. .e disagreed with each other we learned how to listen to each other respectfully. we learned how to voice our opinions respectfully. we learn how to think critically . nowadays schools don't want talk about anything that's controversial or might hurt someone's feelings. i think that's too bad. guest: thanks so much for the thoughtful questions. let me say you're not old and i appreciate you thinking about these issues. on the parent piece i could not agree more.

the most important thing we as parents can do is to be full and equal partners to our children's teachers. when i say that people often think that makes sense for five-year-olds or seven-year-olds. my wife and i have two children high school which is a little stunning. we can't back off now. we have to be more involved and teenagers may not appear that way, they are looking for structure, guidance and if we're not talking to her children's teachers, not supporting them, not hearing about our children's strengths and weaknesses we are not helping teachers do their job and we have to be partners. we as parents have to continue to step up. let me add there are children in communities like the one i'm working in now on the south and --t side and we're candidly there are not any parents raising those children.

data may be gone or incarcerated. mom might be a drug addict. , nonprofits,ty social service agencies, we have to step into that cap and helped raise those children because if we don't what we are seeing is gangs raise the children. in our comfortable homes and nice jobs are engaged if we are not present if we are not walking with these children someone else is and the consequences for them, for the community, the city are devastating. i want to challenge all of them to think how we step into that cap when there is not an adult in that child's life to steer them in the right direction. critical thinking point that you raised, we used to spend lots of time in schools and rising fact, this war, this battle. that is what google is here for. our children don't me to

memorize too much. they can look things up in a heartbeat. what our students do need to be able to do is what you said, think critically. to ask questions or need to listen respectfully to differences of opinion. to work as a team to solve problems and those are the skills that every employer is looking for, the ability to think critically, to be a productive member of a team. to solve tough problems together . those are precisely the skills we need to provide to young people. i would argue learning to read is important, learning math, algebra, calculus is hugely important. the biggest thing we can teach young people now is to love learning and to be a lifelong learner. if they do that they will have success forever. the day you or i stopped reading is the day we become obsolete. the book is called how schools work host: written by arne

duncan. one of the tasks of betsy devos is on school safety she's traveling around the country talking about the school safety commission. what do you think about the test being given to her by the president. guest: unfortunately i find it disingenuous like so much coming from this administration. if you're going to talk about school safety you have to talk about guns. you have to talk about gun violence and tragically we raised a generation of teens in this nation whose been raised on mass shootings and gun violence. for that "commission" to talk about guns it is dishonest. we as adults have failed to keep shoulder and safe. -- free of fear and trauma. i apologize when talking to young people. the young people from parkland, florida. young people from the south and west side of chicago and around the country, they are not waiting for us to keep them safe. they are fighting for this.

i'm more hopeful on this issue. young people will lead our nation to a safer place. that commission is not honestly concerned with the real issues devastating our children unfortunately around the country. host: secretary devos appeared before senate committee talked with an question by senator patrick leahy. i want to show you a portion and get your response. [video clip] will your >> commission look >> at the role of firearms as it relates to gun violence in our schools? >> that is not part of the commission's charge. .> i see so you're studying gun violence but not considering the role of guns. >> we are studying school safety. >> well you are studying things one how much time is spent video games and all of that but you can go to a lot of funds are countries where they spend just as much time but have only a tiny fraction of the shootings that we do.

the gun of choice for mass shooters is an ar-15. do you believe an 18-year-old high school student should be able to walk into a store and minutes later, with an ar-15 style gun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition? and your this body counterparts on the other side of the capital have addressed a number of these issues and i know you will continue -- >> i'm>> trying to give you questions that could be answered yes or no so let me repeat it in case i wasn't clear. it did you believe and 18 euros high school student should be able to walk into a store and minutes later, with an ar-15 style assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition? >> i believe that is a matter for debate and i know that's been debated within this body and will continue to be. our focus is on raising up andessful proven techniques

approaches to ensuring schools are safe for students. host: those are her statements. guest: she answered honestly and said they weren't looking at guns. this administration is bought and owned by the nra and will do their bidding. what troubles me most about this administration is there's no education policy. no goals, no vision. education should be the ultimate bipartisan issue. right now we are 30th in the world in access to pre-k. our goal should be to lead the world in access to high-quality prekindergarten. we talk about high school graduation rates getting to 84%. the current administration's .oal should be given to 90% i would love us to lead the world in access to completion with higher education. right now we are about 16. if we want to keep high skilled jobs in america in a globally competitive economy in a flat world it's in our best interest

to have the best educated workforce in the world. unfortunately you don't hear the administration talking about any of these goals. not one of them. we could have vigorous strategies behind -- to try and achieve these goals. been mounting good ideas. let me add one tougher statement . i'm not convinced this president wants to have the best educated citizenry in the world. we have the kind of authoritative -- authoritarian tendencies president trump has, when you call the press the enemy of the people, when you want to become the source of truth and everything else is fake, when a previous caller linda talked about critical thinking skills and ability to think independently and draw --clusions i'm not sure this i'm not sure it is in this president's best interest to have citizens who can think critically and are well educated. host: what about approaches such

as hardening current school buildings? even to the extent of armed guards in schools? guest: that is the word used by the nra, the word mimicked by the current administrations. a hardened school. recess?ou harden have you harden dismissals? how do you harden a basketball game or a football game? have you harden field trips? the short answer is you can't. we have a gun problem in american society. we don't have a school safety issue we have an american safety issue. areny percent of children killed in schools and we need to do everything we can to keep them safe. , we have people killed in malls, movie theaters, in concerts, congressman playing baseball here. tragically, in churches.

this is a made in america problem. we don't have this level of violence and tragedy and trauma in canada, australia, england, japan, south korea. some issues are hard, putting a man on the moon, curing cancer. this issue is not intellectually hard. we simply lack the political will to keep our kids and our family safe. i think that's a lie that we value our kids and i think we value our guns more than we do our children. host: our guest is currently a managing partner with the emerson collective. guest: the emerson collective is a program led by lorraine jobs was dedicated to trying to make the world better place. emerson focuses on environmental issues, education, immigration. trying to find cures for cancer that killed her late husband

steve jobs. she has been an amazing partner in chicago to try to reduce violence and make community safe for children. host: what is she doing specifically? guest: we have a lot of hard work ahead of us but what we are doing is working directly with the young man most likely to shoot and be shot. i came home and try to figure out how i can help the city, if we wanted to stop shooting we had to work with the shooters. we have a number of men who unfortunately have been shot. many have done their share of shooting that they are tired of the street life. tired of being chased by police, tired of living in fear. we have amazing man transforming their lives. so many have gotten their diplomas. leaders. community these young men are not the problem. they are the solution. our program is called chicago

cred. some of the most humbling, at times heartbreaking extraordinarily inspiring work that i'm so lucky to do today and these men are remarkable. it the event on friday with a community came together to build and whatund for kids had tragically for a long time been a war zone i can't tell you how symbolically important that was. host: from florida, this is michele. caller: i appreciate being on the show. you really got my mind going. i'm going to start out with the charter school thing. as a parent who took voucher and ended up having to homeschool my child while they took the money and our charter schools which take students and pick them back to public school with no funding having put their money in their bank account, i will little upset about the support for charter schools would seem to be bipartisan. seems to be a convenient way to strip schools of money. we do not have the funding we

need to have. dinged onchers being evaluations when they don't have equipment the status post to provide. three laptops in a class of 20 kids in title i schools. guest: be clear i talk about i support good charters not bad charters are kicking kids out or any school is kicking kids out and putting them on the street that's not what good schools do. good schools work with children that are struggling, they wrap their arms around them and find ways to help. i tell a story of the end of the book about an extraordinary school on the west side of chicago working a challenging community. i tell the story of one young man going through horrific things. the easy thing to do would be to kick the young man out of school . this school is staying with him. that is wh school needs to do.

let me talk to you specifically about this issue of funding. that education is an investment, not an expense. too many politicians don't adequately fund education. we are seeing teacher strikes in a number of states. honestly, those were in republican states. oklahoma, you can go down the list. where governors havewee off r noo f when these kinds of things happen, when governors, folks in congress, when the president does not invest in education at , i would love to see .ore free community colleges when politicians failed to invest in education i don't blame them.

i blame us as voters because we don't hold them accountable. if we across the political spectrum demanded politicians invest in education i promise that would happen. as we go to the voting booth in november i hope a piece of what we are voting on it what is this political leaders commitment. ,ot soundbites, not platitudes what is commitment to increasing access to precast, to raising graduation rates. and if they keep those commitments they should have the privilege of keeping their jobs and if they don't keep anditments we as voters citizens need to find other people to step in and do a better job and take their place. host: from south carolina, oriana, hello. caller: i'm actually an important project invested or trying to improve education in impoverished embryos.

education is important to make a society geopolitically stable because then they won't be able to -- they won't be susceptible to being brainwashed by these radical groups and terror organizations. guest: thank you for your leadership we talked about public sector investment nonprofits, philanthropy, governments -- corporations who can step in and fund education helping students think critically, i love that. inron james recently stepped his hometown in akron helped .rovide wraparound services pay for colleges once young people graduated. where we have public-private partnerships there are never enough resources. thinking differently and holistically.

physical needs first before we talk about the academic success, that makes me very hopeful about what we can do as a nation to break the cycles of poverty and having physically engaged stable democracy. host: there is a campaign to replacehost:. -- two replace betty devos with lebron james. guest: i would argue lebron james is a better human being that he is a best ballplayer. host: is are some fallback when one person likes him -- guest: i would love to see a lot more people of means, not just athletes or celebrities or business leaders step in. helping financially, summer jobs for teens, chances for teachers to go back to school and hone , the skills, career-based

community has to be involved in the school and i would love to see a lot more people doing exactly what he's doing. this is a public school funded by public dollars. 20 years ago when i helped run the arial foundation we started a small public school where it was a public school. john rogers helped fund summer programs for kids. he helped do things with parents and put in an investment curriculum where children as young as kindergarten were being taught about the stock market and by the time children were in sixth grade they are stirring to invest real money in the stock market and getting a return. amazing opportunity does -- amazing opportunity that does not normally happen. the lack of minorities having access to that world trying to break down those barriers, there's actually a young man who went to arial community academy who now works at ariel investments who never had that opportunity without it.

i would love to see a lot more individuals of means. a lot more companies and philanthropies stepping up partnering with schools to give every child a chance to receive that great education. host: when the last time you spoke with president obama? guest: i interviewed him in d.c. not too long ago. he's doing well. successes, his failures, a little bit about where things are now. he came out not too long ago, supposed to spend about an hour with our men. it was an extraordinarily emotional day. he talked a lot about growing up with a single mom. he talked a lot about his dad coming into his life for about a month when he was 10 or 11 and disappearing. not one of the men we are father with it now had a

that is alive. on the surface many tough men who were in tears. the sharing and the honesty and the depth of compassion and understanding was a day none of us are going to forget. host: i think i read somewhere when you were secretary and he was president he said you deal with the policy i will deal with the politics. a different experience when it comes to that. guest: i've been so privileged in my life. i know how lucky i was. running chicago public schools with mayor daley, secretary of education for president obama, i worked with and for leaders who were willing to spend political capital, to do hard things if it was the right thing for children. every conversation was is this the right thing for kids. and if it is we will figure out the politics and take some hits. that is so rare. i tell the story of a couple

politicians, including president obama but also governorobama bu, in ohio, where we definitely had some challenges early in our relationship. i came to respect him fought fory and he high standards at a time when his base was yelling at him not to do that. i talk about a governor i have tremendous respect for the idea of free community college may be perceived as a democratic idea -- a republican governor has done that for his entire state. we have to have more politicians on the left and right willing to challenge their own base, willing to challenge the orthodoxy of their party to do the right thing for kids. that is hard to do, it can be a lonely place to be, but i think the politics of the left and right hurt children and hurt our nation. we need folks like president obama, like those governors,

like the governor of delaware, willing to think about what is in the best interest of kids, of their families, and ultimately of our nation. served as the education secretary the obama administration. he is the author of how schools work. >> c-span's fit -- washington journal. bloomberg news campaign-finance reporter bill allison on news for members of congress on stockholding and trading. reporters talk about primaries in four states, including minnesota, and wisconsin. watch c-span's washington journal, coming up at

7 a.m. this morning. join the discussion. journal, theington mayor of philadelphia joins education and community leaders at the center for american progress to talk about education and community development. live coverage begins at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> the association for education and journalism and mass communication posted at their annual meeting in washington, d.c. last week. journalists shared their experiences including reporting from countries in conflict and political rallies where members of the media were heckled and jeered. this runs about one hour and 15 minutes. >> can you hear me all right? we'll get started today. good morning and welcome to our panel here. journalists in the hot seat, staying safe in a hostile political environment. i think many of you know that we