tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. first up tonight, our conversation with "time" magazine's joe klein as we approach the midterm elections. his story this week is called "and american journey." actor tony danza stops by, taking on one of his most challenging roles ever as being a real life 10th grade teacher in philadelphia for a new a&e series called "teach." that is coming up right now. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley.

with every question and answer, nationwide insurance is happy to help tavis improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: joe klein is a widely read columnist for "time" magazine, whose previous books also include "primary colors." he recently completed a 24-day, 12-state tour in key places around the u.s. in advance of election day. the result is this week's cover

story for "time" called "an american journey." joe, could have you on the program. >> good to be back, tavis. -- joe, good to have you on the program. how would you summarize this? >> it was an incredibly moving experience. the country is going through a real fundamental re-evaluation of who we are, what we are about, and what is important. its surprise me. if you watch tv, aside from this show, you see a lot of people shaking their fists and being angry at the president, and i am sure that it is true among a certain segment of the population, but most people are not angry, they are anxious. they are freaked out. they're wondering what will happen next with our economy. they are totally frightened that their kids will not live the same sort of lives they have.

tavis: what about the president? are they for him or against him? >> i would say they are for him, not so much because they love him but because they're really concerned about the future of the country. they respect him, but they don't quite admire him because they are not sure what he has done. he has passed these enormous pieces of legislation and they don't know what is in them. tavis: you talk about the fact you have experienced the natural introspection that we are least paying attention and being frantic after examining ourselves and what is happening to our country. tell me more about that. >> the best thing about this trip was i put in all points bulletin out to "times" readers and said, here is the itinerary, i am coming to your area. you want me to meet people, let me know.

we had about a dozen, 15 such meetings. at one of them was in the middle of michigan, first responders. there were nine people there. eight of the nine had mortgages that were under water, mortgages worth more than the value of their houses because of the defaults in the area. one guy, a deputy police chief, started talking about his neighbors, who have been their best friends, who just walked away from their mortgage. he thought that was an immoral because it lowered the property values of all the properties around him. he said, what are parents ever have walked away from a contractual obligation like that? i don't think so. what is happening to us as a people? you have that, and you also have what has happened to our leaders, what is happening with wall street, who for the last 30 years have created an economy that have shipped some new jobs overseas and created so many

faulty products like faulty subprime mortgages. tavis: is it the notion of us, we, the people changing, or is the system so broken now that we find ourselves doing strange things to cope with that? >> all of the above. i think that people look at our parents, people my age, baby boomers and younger people, we look at our parents as people who had a very start code of ethics, who had gone through the depression, world war ii, worked hard, who kept themselves informed as citizens in a way that we don't. they wonder whether we are measuring up on the leadership level and in our own lives. the other thing is they look at wall street and they see companies, investment banks that took local manufacturing companies, sold them into big

conglomerates, stripped out their research and development capabilities, and sent those jobs overseas. and when they get finished doing that, they invent these crazy mortgage schemes, subprime mortgages, and the invent ways to bet on those like credit default swaps and other wall street products. wall street became a casino. they wonder if the morality that allowed wall street to do that, to make deals instead of investment-making products, is the same thing that is afflicting us because we're not as rigorous as our parents were. tavis: they don't see president obama as the kind of leader who is pushing back on that with your financial reform package, pushing back on the insurance industry with health care reform? >> no, they don't. they don't know what is in the financial regulation package. do you? i am not sure i do. i talk to people in the banking industry who don't know what is ended. that are simple ways to do this

and there are more radical ways, and the president has chosen accommodation rather than confrontation. i understand that. that is why he was elected. i don't know if that is the sort of thing that breaks through to the american people. he has a more basic problem. i was at a town meeting in yuba city, and a young african american guy who worked in health care clinic said, my mom just got to under $50 direct deposit into her checking account -- $250 direct deposit into her checking account, and it was from the ibanez demonstration to help close the doughnut hole for prescription -- from the obama administration to help close the doughnut hole for prescriptions. i cannot remember a politician who would give a tax break to the american people and not let them know about it, but our president apparently is so high- minded that he could not be bothered. tavis: what is your sense of what the american people, real

people, think about our politics? earlier this week on this program, i was in a conversation with a reporter from "the new york times" and he said he does not trust the polls this year for a lot of different reasons. i am not asking about the polls, i am asking about everyday people. what do they think about the politics headed toward the midterm elections? >> they think washington is broken and they don't think the politicians are reflecting the problems, the most important problems that they see. i have obsessed on afghanistan and the problems in the middle east for the last nine years, since 9/11. they don't talk about that. they talk about china. i think it would like to see the president thinking more about china. the problem is they know exactly what republicans stand for. lower taxes, less government

service, less regulation. they kind of sense that was what george w. bush was offering and did not work before, but least they know what it is. they have no idea what the democratic party stands for. tavis: but how is that possible given they controlled the agenda, we see them on television every day? >> because what they have been proposing are these big, amorphous legislative packages like health care reform and regulatory reform, which we mentioned before, and people don't know what is in them except for the stupid provisions that it's not in by this or that congressman -- that gets knocked in by this or that congressmen that republicans exploit to show what is not working. is amazing that most people don't know that in a couple of years the insurance companies will never be able to take away their health care plans because of pre-existing conditions or because of capping out or any other reason. they don't know that, and that

is a failure, i am sad to say, because i think the president is really trying his hardest. most people acknowledge he is really trying hard. they just don't know what he has done. tavis: does this mean the american people are mad and they will show up in huge numbers which we don't tend to see in midterm elections, or will we see a lot of people who are disaffected who decide to sit out? >> i think the problem is the people who are mad will show up in the people who are disaffected will not show up. the people who are mad are the people who represent the policies that were rejected in 2008. i think you will see a lot more republicans than democrats show up in this election. a lot more tea parties. it is important to note that the tea party really has had its greatest impact within the republican party, not on the electorate as a whole.

tavis: finally, for all the midterms you have covered, what is your narrative on this particular midterm election? >> it certainly looks like a republican year. i don't know how big it will be. it might be pretty big, it might be -- the way to have sold it has been ridiculous. they could win 38 seats in the house of representatives and lose the election because they have set the standard they will win the house of representatives. it has been stupid messaging on their part. on the other hand, democrats have not had very much clear to say to the american people about what has gone on in the last two years, which is a big problem. tavis: the american people have had a lot to say and they said it to joe klein, his article in "time" magazine, "an american journey."

joe, thank you for the story. good to have you on the program. >> my pleasure. tavis: up next, actor tony danza. stay with us. pleased to welcome tony danza back to this program. he is taking on one of his most challenging roles ever as a real-life 10th grade teacher for a new project for a&e network called "teach." it airs friday night at 10:00. >> there is a tremendous love story between these two guys. this is a great story. it gets better and better. it is a heartbreaker at the end. stick with it. tomorrow, not my first quiz. it is just two chapters. i just want to know how you guys are doing, ok? >> i do not like quizzes. i think there are a waste of my time. >> when i hear that word, i always think i'm getting a bad

grade. >> i would think mr. danza would have given us a couple of weeks to get to know the stories. >> how about that? have a nice day. thank you for being here. tavis: let me start with something that may seem trivial to some, the notion of wearing a tie. i leaned over and ask you during the clip whether you where the class every day. your answer? >> i wore the tie every day. i think it is important that you be there every day. you have to look a certain way and set the example. by the way, i am not knocking teachers who are more casual. i just felt for me it was something that i envisioned. when i think about a teacher, that is what i envisioned. tavis: before this experience, when you thought about a teacher, the teaching profession, you thought what

prior to as opposed to after the fact? >> i had a misconception. the misconception was that i come from a time when teachers stood at the blackboard and you took notes. they lectured, you took notes. it is different now. they learned differently and there is anything that has been researched in education called collaborative learning, or you get them to do it and they learned -- where you get them to do it and they learn that way. tavis: where did this idea come from and why did you end up in philly? >> the first part, i always wanted to be a teacher. i went to school to be a teacher. it has been on my mind. it is this something, i think it is the most important job in the country. it is our youth. and then i look at the

statistics that we are all aware of. arne duncan said last week that a kid drops out of high school every 11 seconds and america. we are no. 12 in terms of college graduates in the world. there is a problem, it has been on my mind, i am getting to be 60 years old, and i thought i will answer the president's call for service and become a teacher. just do it and change my life. then i happen to tell a friend of mine who is a tv producer and he said, you know, we could sell that. tavis: good tv producer. >> and he did, and if you do a good show, where the kids come first as opposed to the tv show, and you reall like, put tn the urban high school in america -- we hear about it and we see when there is a bad incident, and depict what it is like to be

a first-year teacher, what it takes. not just teaching, the counseling, rigmarole of teaching. show what it is like, how difficult it is, and also may be crazy, inspire some people to do it themselves. tavis: how did you end up in philly? >> what happened was we were doing a group of concepts for the pilot. we did it in yonkers at a school in yonkers, right on the borderline with bronx, lincoln high. great principle there. but we did not end up there. we did the proof of concept there. then we put out feelers. there is a woman in philadelphia who is the liaison for all film and tv. she made the mayor aware of it and the mayor called us and said take a look at us, maybe this will work for our school system. tavis: it is courageous of the

mayor to but a tv crew into one of his high schools for the entire year -- it is courageous of the mayor to let a tv crew into one of his high schools for the entire year because you never know what you will see. how much risk was the city and school district taking letting the cameras in the classroom every day? >> i think the risk centered on me more than the cameras. it was i on the level with this? this had to be for real. you had to try to be a good teacher it and give the kids the class that they deserve. you talk about risk, but the minute that you mention reality show, that is a pejorative. the teachers are beleaguered. they are suspicious. there was a lot of skepticism. by the way, there should be skepticism. but we really tried. it was an unbelievable crew which really tried to be as

unobtrusive as possible, to really disappear into the framework of the school. tavis: but tv cameras, as we know, never really disappeared. and a classroom with kids, how did they start to ignore them? >> i disagree, i think you can. first of all, it goes back to me. i did not play to the cameras. the kids see that. i disregarded the cameras, so they started to disregard the cameras. we caught them doing some corny stuff on camera they should not have been doing. tavis: we showed a clip a moment ago of a kid with his phone under his desk, texting. >> bacon text within their pocket. they can look at you -- they can text within their pocket. they can look at you, me? there listening, but meantime their texting. tavis: are they cheating?

>> there was one incident where i thought a couple kids had similar answers and i knew they both had electronic devices. it is used in the extreme, tavis. 15, 16-year-old in philadelphia, surrounded by the culture they are surrounded by, and it is a difficult task to try to convince them. i used to tell the kids, coming from this neighborhood, if you guys have grades, every college in america will be after you. they have enough of those private school kids. they would love to have a little spice that the inner-city kids would bring to the student body. but it is a very rigid very tough case to make. -- but it is a very tough case to make. tavis: 10th grade, was that your choice or thrust upon you? i am trying to remember where i was in 10th grade, was i aware,

not aware. what are 10th graders thinking about? >> first of all, 10th grade was thrust upon me. i thought eighth grade. you look at the statistics, we start to lose them in the eighth grade. somebody convinced me that 10th graders were you make a stand. me, geton't be like smart early. now is the time, especially the year before 11th grade, which is big as far as college is concerned. i tried to convince them of that. there is a book called "five." where are you going to be in five years? that is hard for kids to think about. but i tried to stress that, that they had to start thinking about it now. we are in a different world then we were when i graduated high school. which was a long time ago. tavis: let me be direct about

this, how bad now that you have had the experience for a year, how bad do teachers have it? >> teachers have it tough. "the new york times" said it is a counterweight to the movie "superman." i know the movie is terrific, and the statistics are heartbreaking. i think the point we are missing, one of the points we are missing is, what every parent and country do that for their kids? that is one of the problems. a lot of times -- let me do it this way. i had a conversation the other night about the difference between private school and public school. i said what would you pay for private school? she said, i get smaller class size, better teachers, better facility, down the list.

i said, that is true, you get all that, maybe, but what you really pay for are the parents. you get like my parents to have all pulled their kids to go to school and do well because it means something -- you get like- minded parents. i am sure there are bad teachers, no doubt about it. i heard a statistic that there are 80,000 teachers in new york and only three were fired last year. there is some problem with the unions protecting them. having said that, i think there are many more discouraged teachers, evidenced by three years, 30% drop out, and five years, 45%, just as they are starting to get it. they say, i can't handle it. tavis: if the teachers are discouraged, what does that say about the kids? >> the kids need to be more motivated. the kids think the teacher is supposed to do everything, you bend your head over, they pour

in the knowledge. it does not work that way. take part in your own education. we talk about that all the time. i cannot wanted more than you want it. you have to understand that it is important. the teacher has to teach the curriculum, which, let me tell you, you feel the clock ticking. "mockingbird" is 31 chapters. that is a lot of chapters. build character, and still values, and teach some self control and self discipline in 45 minutes? -- instill values, and teach some self control and self discipline in 45 minutes? give me more time. tavis: i suspect most of these kids were probably born after the hit tv shows, so did they know the tony danza back story? >> i think eventually they understood. in the proof of concept, it was funny, the kids said, i think my

mother is a fan. i think my grandma is a fan. no, they were born after the shows were off the air. that really helps. ironically, during the year, the hallmark channel put on a "who's the boss." so the kids started seeing it. you would hear the kids say, you didn't walk that way back then. but it was great. let me tell you, it was the most rewarding. for people who watched the show, it is daunting. i started out very emotional about things, but the good news was that i stop crying about myself and really started crying about the kids. tavis: it is a great concept, and i am glad to see tony danza had the courage to step in a classroom. >> let me tell you, tavis, you say can i do a whole year? is no small feat because you have to be there every day.

when you see the need and then you see some of the committed teachers, there is a teacher going back his 37th year. i say, what are you doing it? he said, maybe this year i will get it right. the econo stuff, a year? big deal. -- that kind of stuff, a year? big deal. good to have you won. >> congratulations on all of your success. you are an institution. tavis: get out of here. thank you for tuning in. until next time, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time with princeton professor peter singer and the legendary singer/songwriter neil sedaka. that is next time. we will see you then. >> all i know is his name is james, and he needs extra help

with his reading. >> i'm james. >> yes. >> to everyone making a difference, you help us all live better. >> nationwide insurance supports tavis smiley. with every question and answer, nationwide insurance is proud to join tavis in working to improve financial literacy and remove obstacles to economic empowerment one conversation at a time. nationwide is on your side. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--