>> john: school spending is through the roof. why, what's gone wrong? the bureaucracy is what is wrong >> it's the glob. >> john: like the reformers are up the against the unions and paper pushers. >> let's destroy the system. >> john: bring on the creative destruction, who would disagree? teachers unions disagree and they are mad at me and reform rs that care about kids in school. >> city schools are terrible because of unions because they are focusing on test scores. >> john: how do you know if they are learning anything? give me a break. they chose this school. unions are mad because some charters can fire. >> its freedom of speech. >> what is wrong with that. a teacher wants to teach. this actor says teachers need

tenure. >> why else would you take a [ bleep ] salary. most places continues to have tenure but there is good news. at some schools where teachers can be fired kids learn. >> give us the worst schools anywhere in america and we'll outperform the other schools in five years. >> john: how good are the scores. >> there isn't a worse score. >> but there are problem kids. >> no way, i love school. >> but sadly up to now, adult schools have run it and made us stupid in america. >> john: schoolpending has tripled over the past 40 years. woo now spend much more than other countries but what do we get? more assistant principals but student learning, no improvement. there the line. for 40 years, scores have been

flat, much more money, no improvement. this is awful, but there is some good news. around america, very, very cool things are starting to happen. >> school is boring. yes, it is. i went to school. grade school was born, so was high school was boring, so was princeton except for the party part. but fourth grade you have to learn reading and writing. that is work. >> reading is work but it's rocking awesome. >> john: and they say school is fun? >> how is it fun to learn. >> if you learn in a fun way. >> do you look forward to going to school in the morning? >> yes. >> john: they attend one of the new charter schools, flee but the charter let's them escape the bureaucracy of regular schools. this school enrolls the inner

city kids that bureaucrats show at risk of failure. >> it's 100 on top of their game right now. >> going to our school is a ticket to educational success. >> john: this woman runs several charter schools. all get outstanding test scores. >> john: you do this with the same money? >> we have to do it with less, less per child. >> john: how? from less money. do they get the kids so interested? >> they give them math, and reading but learning is work. [ laughter ] >> john: the school is longer, they stay until 5:00 p.m. chart charted teachers can be skhd to work more. >> but you are going to burn off. >> that is not an option for us, we have our hand in the pie with

these kids. >> john: they use all sort of new teaching techniques, they use ear pieces and coached by their bosses. >> what they telling you. >> they are telling me of things that i don't see. if i don't think of a great question in the moment, my principal is able to feed that to me in the earpiece. we see teachers like in olympics so they need constant support. >> john: kids wave their hands around but it's what they call active listening. instead of interrupting contrast or i agree with that. the student makes hand gestures. >> john: what is the symbol? >> the parents line up hoping to get their kids admitted. >> this goes on and on forever.

>> so many applicants but not that many spices zploojts what do you do when you have thousands of people and few hundred slots. they hold a lottery. winners are happy. sadly there are many more losers. on the other end of america, in oakland, california another charter change gets similar results using different methods. >> give me the worst school in oakland, black, mexican, give us the worst schools anywhere in america and we'll take it and we'll outperform the other schools in five years. >> john: benchavis created the model for american indianaian schools right in the heart of a rough neighborhood. >> these are hard workers here. >> john: the kids at american indian schools have some of the highest test scores in california. >> you can do that with the same

amount. >> we get less. we get less than every other school. >> the kids in american indian schools are scoring so far above the average for the state for public school children that there isn't even a word for it. >> john: they use different techniques. here at american indian they pay some daddy's tutor other kids. >> we hire students and pay them. they are excited. they are going to make some money. >> john: politically incorrect? >> good for you. you'll be a rare bird. >> he has been criticized for imposing strict rules. >> they are stricter because they want us to succeed. >> john: a teacher made this student do pushups in the hallway. >> you have to try hard when you are here. >> my other school we didn't

have as much homework but we have six subjects of homework and the teachers are lot nicer. >> john: meaner and yet no students has been expelled since the school combine. >> no way. i love the kids that get in trouble because you can take a kid that acting like a fool or gets in trouble and use them as an example. >> john: it's cruel. you have a sixth grade student that acts up in class and he'll be sent to sit in the floor in an eighth grade class. >> that is true. and keep in mind, whether we want to admit it or not. >> john: even gym is strict. >> we play games but here, it's running or running around the block. >> you fire people and should be fired. >> you fire students within one day? >> yes.

she was incompetent. >> i thought i was going to get fired five times and i can happen on a drop of a dime. >> that is not true with most government run schools especially union ones. union teachers are happy they can't suddenly be fired but these charter teachers can be fired. >> you can get canned in a moment. does it bother you? >> if i'm not doing my job, and i was fired for that, so be it. >> if i was doctor and i wasn't good, i wouldn't have a job with the company, right? >> john: i would hope not. >> you can't maintain quality unless do you it this way. >> have you fired more than ten? >> in three schools in eight years, yes. >> john: bad teachers may get fired but good teachers are given freedom. >> they can choose their textbooks and teaching methods as long as students are learning

what they need to learn at the end gate. >> 43% get passing grades in state math tests. 100% of her kids pass. so if such charters work, why aren't there more of them? because unions and supporters of traditional schools hated charters. this protest occurred outside one of their charters. >> i hope it's not personal. >> john: this union boss doesn't want chaers in his school. >> over my dead body. >> john: does he again go get to stop them? confront the unions and other strange things, we shouldn't teach teachers how well students do on tests. >> john: how do you know if they are learning anything? >> i know when they look in their eye. >> john: more stupid in america, when we return.

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those great new charter scho we showe >> john: those charter schools we showed you, i wish there was more of them because competition make them better. there are some people that don't like it >> shame on you! >>

>> john: the crowd liked the idea of me teaching for a week. >> i think i surprised them again when i said, okay, i'll teach, but then they changed their mind. >> union president randy wine garden won't talk to me but two others, joe grosso and nathan saunders. >> city schools are terrible because of unions like you? >> i would disagree. we have progress as a result of unions. >> three days before he led a protest march to complain to pay teachers on how well they students do on tests. they even composed an anti-test song. >> i think i know why the union

doesn't like testing. >> your results are awful. among the lowest in the nation. >> you make an argument that it's the lowest in the nation based upon the test scores. now, i would say that ours is better i would say. >> your predecessors have been saying had a for years. >> i think the unions have a strong history of advocating for high quality public education. >> john: but not achieving it. >> our test scores is not what we choose to focus on. we choose on focus on teaching kids. >> john: how do you know if they are learning? >> i know they are learning when think look in their eye. >> john: they had celebrity support. matt damon he was asked about the rules that make it hard to fire a union teacher. >> there isn't job security. why isn't like that for teachers? >> do you think job security is

what makes me work hard. it's not an incentive. you take this mba style thinking. >> john: mba style? business school idea? yes, charter schools, even obama's race to the top is based on the idea that competition is good. if kids are free to take their school money to any schools, competition among schools including for profit will force all the schools to get better or go out of business but that schools will expand. the unions don't like that market competition. >> there is a profit motive behind all of this extra testing. >> we need to get the corporations out of schools. >> the unions and school choice with rich corporations but further impoverish teachers. ♪ ♪ >> john: are teachers paid enough?

>> no. >> some teachers make over a hundred thousand. >> matt damon agrees with that, his mom is a union teacher. >> a teacher wants to teach. why else would you take a [ bleep ] salary and really long hours. >> john: teachers make a [ bleep ] salary. maybe to matt damon but today american teachers make more than accountants, architects. >> i can guarantee you it's not about the money. >> a former d.c. politician. when i was in family education, i gave the school system $300 million new dollars, more money than ever to educate kids and test scores went down. what they did do they more deputies to assistant to the deputy of the assistant. they grew. >> and former chancellor found the bigger bureaucracy didn't even get school supplies to the

kids. >> walking into schools and seeing there were no books in the library, kids didn't have pencils. then the following week, i visited the warehouse of the school district where there were boxes and boxes of books and glue. >> john: why didn't they get the schools? >> that was the question. >> john: why didn't they get to the school? >> it was just a complete and utter sense of dysfunction on the lack of accountability. >> john: the reason they call the school bureaucracy the blob, it's like this blob that can't be budged. blob is the teachers union, janitors union, school board bureaucrats. if you tiek try to make a change the blob.... >> we don't that here. we have four to or five people to sign off. they have to say this okay. it's crazy. >> john: union leaders escape that burr bureaucracy.

>> you went to private school? >> it made me feel i better do good in that school or else. >> john: why can't other people have the choice they had? also, why does it cost a third of a million dollars to fire just one union teacher? what is wrong with these people? ♪

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look who sent their kids to private school. nan nancy pelosi. hillary clinton. al gore. the. >> the people who are making the rules already have choice. you know, the politicians and i used to be a politician.

the pol ians have a yet all t id p scho hoice for r p eople.ha y ou for tg m qution, presiden i wa nted orot ha uldet sh quality rigorous education in a d.c. public school? >> if i wanted to find a great you. if sasha to be i could obably man euver to do it. >> but apparently he didn't want to. the president now sends them to sidwell friend. the same school the vice president's grandkids attend. tuition, $32,000 a year. and the union leaders? >> you went to private school. >> that's correct. i graduated a catholic high school. >> the head of newark's teacher's union. a tough negotiator. at this school board meeting when the chairman said he used up his speaking time he marched up to the front to demand more saying my union contract mandates seven more minutes

than i got. >> the rigidity of the stupid union contract is why the kids suffer. your union is the problem. >> i think you know better than that. >> he opposes letting kids escape his rules by, say, allowing them to attend charter schools in existing school buildings. >> over my dead body they are going to come there. i'm going to be there and physically try and stop them. there is certain things that don't mix. oil and water you can't emulsify. >> this is no room? the half empty schools. >> there is not half empty schools. >> he says charters favor rich kids but newark public schools spend almost $400,000 per classroom and the charters get less. >> not that much less. according -- >> but they get less. it is hardly the rich versus the poor. >> happy for them. >> then let them into your schools. >> don't want them in our schools. why should you be -- >> you are not happy for them

then? >> does fox and cnn are they in the same building? i don't think so. >> but fox and cnn can't been aish the competition. competition is good. competition is why we have fox and cnn and msnbc. whistling you have a choice of what channel you are going to watch or what school you attend, competition makes things better. he understands that about his own education. >> my mother paid for me to go to it and it kind of made me feel that i had better do pretty good this that school or else. >> sounds like you are argue against the unionized public school. >> i'm not arguing against them. >> most of the independent schools are still catholic schools doing a great job for less than half of the money you spend. >> i wouldn't say that. >> $17,000 versus $5,000. >> john, tell them to have another bingo game and get it over with. >> catholic schools fire bad teachers but government run schools really can't because

teachers get tenure. why have tenure. most professions don't have tenure. >> when you got into original are niced crime and got to be a made person there was a ceremony but not like tenure. >> kind of like organized crime you are in forever unless you die or are kill. >> there is that perspective of it. you are good teacher there shouldn't be a problem with it. >> here is one problem. not every teacher is good. some are really lousy. >> it is impossible to fire these tenured teachers. >> whbut why? >> because there are a million steps. >> there haven't. there is only one. >> it is not one step. it is all these steps. >> let's see. >> this the list of steps required to fire a teacher in my town. this is why most principals don't even try. they look at the list of of appeals and just give up. or they push the worst teachers to transfer to another school.

stouth a common way to avoid the schools there is even a name for it. dance of the lemmon. it would be funny except it leaves some kids stuck with terrible teachers. >> this is crazy. >> this former police investigator says it takes years to fire even an abusive teach. lots of people said he hit kids. the kids said it. >> lots of people said he hit them and other teachers said that there were present in the classroom. took me four years and $283,000. a $127,000 in legal fees. plus what it cost to have a substitute fill in all while he is sitting home having popcorn. >> so being paid by the state. >> still being paid by the district. >> he couldn't even fire the teacher who faked his doctorate. and -- >> he went to sleep in class. >> and he was quite disturbed when the supervisor came in and woke him up. >> he complained. >> it never ends. it never ends. >> when we return, meet someone who successfully fired hundreds of teachers.

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wanted. live from america's news headquarters, i'm gregg jarrett. with america trillions of dollars in debt. president obama is set to roll out a new plan that would hit the country's top earners, the buffet rule would target individuals making one million a year or more to make sure they pay the same percentage of earnings as middle income taxpayers. >> an air show safety is back in the forefront after two deadly crashes in two days. investigators looking into how a vintage plane dropped from a sky in remo plunging into a box seat. nine people died, dozen more injured. we are awaiting an update from west virginia. world war ii jet slamming into

the ground. the pilot died. nobody on the ground was injured. >> i'm greg generator and now back to stupid in america. we'll see you at the top of the hour on america's news headquarters. "stupid in america." as we see, education in america is a mess. what will fix it? who might fix it? >> somebody needs to fix this! you you can do it! >> oprah thinks this woman can fix it. >> thank you, michelle. i'm rooting for you. >> michelle is michelle reid. >> michelle reid acting chancellor. >> five years ago, the mayor picked her to manage d.c. schools. >> you would never run a school system before. >> i had never run a school before. and that is why people thought that adrian was nuts. i was a 37-year-old girl from toledo, ohio. >> and people said what?

who? >> yeah. people said he's lost his mind. >> her friends said she had lost hers. >> i have two kids. two daughters, 9 and 12 and they -- i put them in the d.c. public schools. >> the schools were a disaster. test results among the worst in america. chancellor reid quickly learnd that although only 8% of the kids were on grade level, there was something odd about how the teachers were ranked. >> when i looked at the performance evaluations of the adults in the system. >> how good is the adult doing. >> right, how good are the teachers doing, i found that 95% of the adults were being rated as doing a great job. so how can you have a system where all of the workers are thinking we are doing a great job and a great job for the kids and what we are producing for them is 8% success? >> she visited schools and saw empty classrooms. >> i walk into this one school and go to the first classroom. five kids in the classroom.

same classroom. nine kids. third, three kids. seven kids. i'm thinking what is going on. finally i get to the fifth or sixth classroom and ask the teacher. i said where are all the kids? and she said well, it's friday. i thought really? i just couldn't believe that was the answer. so i said is that all? and she said no. >> i thought great, okay. she is going tell me some are on a field trip or something like that. she said it's raining, too. >> turned out that not every classroom was empty. attendance varied by teach. i'm walking through and finishing my visit and i walk into one classroom and there are 30 kids in the classroom. there in fact are not enough desks for the number of kid there's. there was kids sitting on the radiators and what not. i go to one of the kids and i said what do you think about the teacher. he said this is my best teacher, bar none. as i was leaving the school, and this was about at 10:00 in the morning that young man and two of his friends were walking

out of the school in front of me. so i tap them on the shoulder and i said excuse me, where do you think you are going? >> they said our first period teacher is great so we came to school but our second period teacher is not so good so we are going to roll. >> i thought this is not the picture that the american public have in their minds of true wants. they are making a conscious decision to wake up early and come to school for first period because they knew they were going get something out of it and then to leave after that because they weren't going to get any value out of it. >> and the great teacher gets paid no more than all of the other teachers. >> that's right. gets paid no more. if we were doing seniority based layoffs would have got laid off first. >> she decided to pay good teachers more and fire bad teachers. >> that did not go over particularly well. >> reid must go. >> a few you weeks into this i was visited by my then general counsel and he comes rushing

into my office and says you have got to stop firing people. i said why? i mean if the people are not doing the jobs that he this are supposed to be doing, we need to move them out. and he said welcome to d.c. public schools where we never fire any one. >> but you did fire a lot of the people. >> eventually we did. >> she found a 90 day loophole that let her close some lousy schools and fire some teachers. >> nothing short of a firestorm surrounding the future of the school system. >> 30 principals this week. >> it was a plan, a plot even before she took the job to get rid of people who have been around who have tenure. >> you fired. >> closed 15% of the city schools. fired your own daughter's principal. >> that was a chilly night at home. >> she upset families, communities, students and teachers. a lot of people got fired. she. >> she said they deserved to be

fired, the system needs change. >> many of those is thought she needed to be fire. >> people really hated you. hate you still. >> yeah, yeah. i was the wicked witch of the west. they called me the hatchett lady. the dragon lady. the topper term are nateer. >> big bad witch. time magazine even put you on the cover with the broom. >> i took the broom to mean sweeping house. >> the blob didn't want their house swept. the union says poorly performing teachers need a second chance. >> don't you have some union teachers who are just lousy? >> we need to lift up the low performers and help them do better. >> why not fire them. sorry, maybe teaching is not for you. >> there is a cost to firing teachers. the quality of life of that person is deeply affected by that termination. >> so therefore nobody should ever be fired? >> well, what we should do is help people improve their skills. >> people would say to me,

well, if a teacher is not effective, you should talk about spending the time and effort to professionally develop that person, right. i would say okay, but whose children are we going to put in that classroom for this year? >> who are you going to practice on? >> right, who are you cboing to say oh, it didn't work out, sorry. you only get one chance at first grade. i made the decision we will do the layoffs by quality instead of seniority. and this really upset the apple cart and people, you know, were protesting. >> why would it upset the apple cart? it is just common sense to do it by quality. >> common sense to you and me but it was absolutely counter to what the district had always done. it is the way that unions operate, right. i mean seniority. >> it cheats the good young teacher, don't they get mad? if forget the young teachers. it cheats the kids. >> kids were a little less

cheated under reid. test scores went up when she was chancellor but in the end the union won. >> you can get her out. >> we are going to fire her. if we have to be here every day all night we will. >> the mayor who appointed her was voted out and when lost, reid quit before she was fired. >> michelle reid becomes a casualty of d.c. politics. so so she lost in d.c. but elsewhere in america all sorts of new schools are succeeding of new schools are succeeding and exciting things are@?ñ [ courier ] the amazing story of whether bovine heart tissue

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people who try to start charter schools often say oh, bureaucrats make is so hard and put up all of the obstacles and there th is why there aren't enough chart ares yet to have a real market except in one town most kids now attend charters. how did that happen? >> hurricane katrina on track to make a direct hit on the low lying city of new orleans. >> it happened because of a hurricane. >> all eyes on new orleans. not only a famous city but below sea level. >> the entire city will be under water. >> mother nature is in charge and now mother nature has dealt one horrific blow. >> when katrina flooded new orleans it didn't just

destroy much of the city, it also destroyed the school system. some school reformers thought maybe that is what needed to happen. >> it was probably one of the worst school districts in the country. it was a horror. >> before katrina, our schools, i mean they were just failing. >> the choice was do you rebuild what was there or build something entirely new. >> louisiana built something new. they made it easy for people to open charters. >> you tell the state here is my plan. >> ben started a charter school called sci academy. he was the only employee. he drove his car around new orleans until 3:00 in the morning putting up signs advertising his school. >> and you see this number right here, that was my cell phone. >> he had to advertise because students had to choose to go there. they didn't just get sent here because they live nearby. >> we are putting these up everywhere. >> he went to people's houses

to recruit. >> living in new orleans we never had that. >> her son reggie goes to sci academy. >> he came out and interviewed and talked to me and then talked to reggie and was explaining to him about the hours and academics and stuff. >> when the school opened only a of the students were pressurent on state tests. now, sci academy test results are among the best in the city even though the school itself is just a bunch of trailers. >> there is a plan in my mind to have a permanent building but if you walk in a school and first thing they tell you are complaints about the facilities they are probably not focused on the right things. >> how did they do this? >> well, teachers have to perform because the principal can fire at will. >> yeah, we have at will contracts with the school. >> sharon clark runs another new orleans charter and she, too, fires the weakest teachers. >> i call it freeing up a person's future. >> the charter law also allows

parents to fire a school if they don't like this school they can send their kid to another. >> sharon needs to work hard because she worries about losing her charter. >> yes, every day, sir. >> good morning, class of 2013! >> good morning! >> the competition drives schools to try different things like this morning ritual at sci academy. >> who are you? >> education is my future and the future is now. >> why are you here? >> this seems a little cult like and some kids didn't take it seriously but something worked. >> it is an amazing difference. since he has been here he has become more sponsible. thinking. >> even though i didn't like the school at first as i went to school i started to want to go to college more because i saw how important it was. >> now, reggie's mother is getting ready to start college so reggie tutored her for a

test using skills he learned at sci. >> this is how it should have been before katrina. >> is this charter has gone from one employee into another school that is so popular it holds a lottery to decide who gets in. >> we are going to have a waiting list of 200 students long. >> this is the first by far. >> as you saw in harlem, nervous kids and relatives sit anxiously hoping their name will be called. some go away happy. >> yeah! >> most do not. >> it just goes to show, this kind of school is badly needed in the city and this kind of education is exactly what we need to be offering every single kid. >> today, most kids in new orleans attend charter schools and test scores across the city are better. >> many of the greatest cities in the world have been reborn amid crises. the chicago fire resulted in a greater chicago being built. the san francisco earthquake

resulted in a much more dynamic safer city emerging. the fire of london resulted in a much greater capital emerging. well, you know, people in new orleans are rebuilding the city for the better. >> the school of choice movement is here to stay and it will never go back. >> and next, some more good news. time from the internet. the blob should be worried because look how excited these kids are about math. there'only one bottle left ! i've got to tell susie ! the vending machine on elm is almost empty. i'm on it, boss. new pony ? sorry ! we are open for business. let's reroute greg to fresno. growing businesses use machine-to-mhine technology from verizon wireless. susie ! the vending machine... already filled. cool bike. because the business with the best technology rules.

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do your kids have a good teacher? how do you know? maybe the teacher next door is better. maybe there is a better teacher in another state.

maybe there is the world's best teacher or several. wouldn't it be great if your kids could have that teacher? well, today, yes, you can. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> these kids are this excited about a math website. >> it is amazing. >> negative four minus four and we are done. >> taught me a lot of things. >> five years ago, hedge fund analyst sal khan created videos like these to tutor his cousin. >> that worked out well so i started tutoring her brothers and cousins and all the rest and i had to do the same lecture all over again. i had a friend who said why don't you put your lectures on you tube. i decided to give it a shot. >> welcome to the presentation on basic addition. >> soon, thousands watched his lectures. >> i started getting letters from people and comments on youtube and they are not like hey, i think this kind of might of helped on my math exam.

they are like i failed calculus the first time. i start ared watching the videos and now i'm acing the class. >> the youtube numbers kept rising and he got letters from the middle east and africa. >> what sal khan has done is amazing. >> now, he is funded by bill gates and offers web lecturers on everything from history to economics to computer science. his videos are viewed millions of times. >> even if god forbid i got about it by a bus when i walked outside it will still reach millions and maybe eventually billions of students. >> just happen to be good at teaching. >> i will take that as a compliment. >> it is a compliment. he is a great teacher. >> i hope that helps. see you in the next video. >> it is really helping us learn a lot more. >> it is exciteing that he gets kids so excited about math. >> in most parts of life, things have gotten much better, cars, computers, cell phones. education not so much. >> right, you know, you rewind,

80 or 90 or 100 years and you would have the local band that if you had a party that was the only gig in town. >> each village might have a story teller. >> exactly. >> or a sing. exactly. once you have mass media coming out they will say wait, why don't we take the best musician and actor and story teller and whatever way and record it and put it out on radio, put it out on records or whatever and i think in theory that could have happened with education before. >> but it hasn't. >> even for basic math, multiplication tables i thought they would be using video games. why not? >> they don't want to change the system. >> the blob people call it. >> what is fun from our point of view we are able to reach students outside of the blob. >> this california school district started using khan's videos in 5th grade

classrooms. the teachers were skepti skept. >> they are excited about math. it is like oh, we have math this morning. this is great. >> we assume that most people on their own don't want to learn or don't want to get engaged in mathematics. >> i think they are just frustrated because most of them are in classrooms that are not catering to them. >> at first teachers worried that the online instruction could replace them but -- >> i think it is so wrong as my teachers would tell you they have taught more math than they ever taught before. >> now, teachers can tutor kids one on one. >> i notice you were having some issues with fractions. >> you request go on your own pace. >> and because kids can go at their own pace. >> i have students working on easy multiplication. >> some kids enjoy the lessons so much they study at home. >> some of them are doing two and three hours a night at home when i'm asking for 15 minutes.

>> when i'm at home and i have time i log on. >> so finally after all of the years of kids being bored in school and not learning math, that is over? >> i think is might be. >> hope so. if it happens it will be thanks to the online classes or the charter schools or other experiments that break out of the union dominated government monopoly. let a thousand flowers bloom. it's competition that has given us better medicine and transportation, technology, everything. don't your kids deserve that, too? that is our show. i'm john stossel. captioned bso i takecaptnininii one a day men's 50+ advantage. as a manager, my team counts on me to stay focused. it's the only complete multivitamin with ginkgo to support memory and concentration. plus it supports heart health. [ bat cracks ] that's a hit. one a day men's. getting an amazing discount on a hotel

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>> gregg: hello, i'm gregg jarrett. welcome to a brand-new hour. >> heather: i'm