system. of course, this is all part of nbc's education nation week and we are back with our panel. joining the table -- i'm sunrise. most of msnbc's "the last word." >> big day. >> premiering tonight. >> 10:00 eastern time. lawrence o'donnell. >> i read "the new york times" story yesterday, lawrence. my question simple. how does an 84-year-old get up and do what you do at 10:00 every night? >> i will have in makeup for about 20 hours before, before i go live. >> that's exciting. >> do this show this morning so i think my energy curve is going to hit bottom around 9:30 tonight. >> before you go on the air. >> big story tonight. we are talking about it. breaking news while the president was interviewed. snooki rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. we'll keep -- >> how could that possibly -- >> we'll keep you informed. >> what are you doing? >> snooki, not a resident of new

jersey. so let's move from snooki to public education. what's your takeaway the t president? >> she is great on this issue. bill clinton, both george bushes and barack obama talks about education more passionately than any other issue. can he get republicans that don't want to work with him on anything work with him on this. >> john, it seems that this might be one issue of bipartisan agreement. >> so far the republicans are almost reluctant but they have to go with him because he's been very tough as you were talking about and nixon goes to china way, tough on teachers unions and hard for republicans to disagree with the president singing their tune. >> no doubt about it. >> so tell me, lawrence, you were a bit skeptical about health care reform. i think history's proven you right. what about education reform?

seems unlike health care reform, other than the unions you have americans seemingly coming together. >> i think snooki highlights the problem in public education. >> no doubt about it. >> she had fine teachers. she went to the finest schools an look where she's ended up. >> the finest. >> it's -- can't blame the teachers for everything. it's true. think about snooki, seriously. when we talk about teachers and try to lay all the blame on them and say why can't that teacher get that kid's score up, watch "jersey shore" and tell me what teacher could possibly have reached any one of them to get any one of their scores up in any subject. >> very good question. >> willie? to that i just say, sir, check mate. check mate. >> i have no comeback to that. >> i don't know what to say. >> the other morning we were talking and didn't get -- >> i can't do that way with the air situation. >> i was -- >> blowing. >> look at this.

>> i worked -- this is what i asked. i asked for this side to get this effect. >> very good. >> works well. with this angle here, it is kind of that wind blown thing. >> i like it. >> so lawrence -- >> a seat of a convertible. >> lawrence o'donnell -- >> yeah. >> with air blowing. >> i don't work with hair spray. mr. natural. >> several pounds of makeup. >> i'll talk to the back of his head. >> you were saying -- i can hear you. go ahead. >> lawrence, the other morning, someone was on the show -- >> uh-huh. >> going after the teacher's yungs. >> yes. >> you said i disagree completely. we had to go to break. why do you say that? >> i think there's a tremendous overemphasis on the teacher's union. isolated especially by, you know, union barber congressman scarborough here. >> that's the teamsters. >> like most of the things you say that's absolutely false. >> united mine workers.

on board with them? >> i have no problem. listen. you -- >> go back. >> by the way, lawrence, it hurts me right here. while your hair may look good in the wind, you have no idea. i had an awful lot of union support when i ran. i was against nafta. g.a.p. wto. i know maybe it fits in with the people watching your 10:00 show but i'm quite enlightened and a working class hero, thank you very much. >> the best airing of the teacher factor was right here for two hours yesterday. audience filled with teachers. fascinating. some saying we can't do this without tenure. that's what allows us to stand up to principals getting things wrong. yo younger teachers saying the union protects me enough. fabulous exchange. >> it was. >> those teachers shared, there were teachers in the audience who agreed more with you than they might agree with someone

else. and then there were teachers who were very protective of the union as you might expect but i think those two hours illuminated -- >> i hope you were joking about me being a union barber. i'm absolutely not but i don't think you can go up to harlem or the south bronx or you're working in a school, especially, though, in new york where we have charters, public charters that work and you have unions that are placing caps on it and seeing kids trapped in the south bronx and harlem and brooklyn. i don't know how you don't look at that situation and say, it's immoral. >> well, the unions aren't controlling the outcomes here. now, they have a concern that is legitimate which is -- this is a historic concern and all educational systems is where are the resources going? we used to see resources distributed in this country in many ways according to race and certain neighborhoods because of that, harlem used to not get anything because it was harlem and the black section an the

other sections would get more resources. we saw that. and then there were intervent n interventions, very crude attempted like school bussing and things like that to correct that sort of thing and so the issue with charters now is, if we shift those resources to charters, what happens back here in this school? it is a very, very serious issue. >> i'm sorry. >> it is not a simple issue. you know, my daughter went to a public charter school and that school had much better resources than another school that was within walking distance of that school, another public school. >> i can say, though, in new york, stamford study showed that actually the charters, public charters do a much better job and they do it for about seven cents on the -- >> you remembhave to remember w driving charter schools. parents. the parent is directing that child. and directing that child's education.

left behind in the other schools is a very large student population in which there is no parental direction of their education. >> we agreed last night on this set -- >> from day one. >> i mean, the charters aren't the ends. they're the means to an end. if all we do is set up a handful of charters that work, that's a failure. we have to figure out how to export what's working in harlem, exporting that across. >> that's where i think the problem is. when you try to go grand scale with this idea, that's where you start to see there are real problems. including, including that nationwide when you put all the charters together, and compare them to all the public schools there is not a significance performance increase. >> we have something working in new york. i talked about the stamford study showing new york's doing extraordinary things. >> are you checking the hair? >> jealous.

>> completely closed the gap. harlem scarsdale gap that educators talk about. nationwide charter schools aren't doing better than regular public school. doesn't it make sense to figure out what they're doing right up in harlem and say how do we do that to scale? >> it does but let's remember american public across the nation and world competitiveness. we are no longer number one in math and science. when's going on here is finally the really brilliant minds in india and the really brilliant minds in china are getting an education. they didn't used to. >> right. >> they didn't used to even go to school. now we are including in test scores around the world and academic performance scores around the world the expansion teams, the chinese public school system that didn't used to exist and doing well. think about harvard college. okay? still worldwide the most desired

place for students to go. >> no doubt. >> if you are the best math students in india and china, where do you want to go to college? mit, harvard. if you go to harvard, guess what you find. a population that is two thirds delivered to it from american public schools. american public schools still deliver at the top end the best students in the world. >> very good. lawrence, as we close this segment out -- >> he's going to stay with us. >> i know. i want to put a neat little period on this. hold on. hold on one second. >> the hair. >> if i compliment your hair -- >> yes. >> -- will you apologize for misstating my position on unions. >> let me hear the compliment. >> striking. it reminds me of a line from "thunder road" -- >> you are my union brother. >> all right.

my man. >> power to the people. >> right on. >> i'm exhausted. business before the bell. shall we? >> how's my hair look? >> doesn't look. >> bril lo pad. >> i would love to have that. >> no, no, no. i would love -- >> chinese hair. each hair makes a decision at its own moment. >> live at the new york stock exchange, erin, please. >> all right. so we'll give you the market headlines. >> look at her hair. look at that hair. >> what? is it good? >> good. >> all right. >> no wind. there's no wind there. >> very lucky. >> no wind here. just wind of a sort we don't like to talk about. plenty of that down here. dow, 8.4% higher for september. that's best september since 1939 so coming into the final few days of september with a lot of optimism and today, guys, big headlines. we have three deals. companies do deals when they're confident and we have confidence today. walmart going to spend more than $4 billion for the biggest retailer in south africa. you got unilever with the nexus

conditioner shampoos for nearly $4 billion in cash and paying it right now. another sign of confidence and southwest airlines putting in a bid for air tran. all that adds up to confidence. overall market, 100 of the 500 stocks in the s&p 500 at least at one-year highs and nine companies trying to debut this week here in the markets which is another sign of optimism. so, optimism rules when it comes to stocks. when it comes to education, just one question. how do we pay for it? public education with property tax sort of means people that live in rich neighborhoods get better gags than people in poor. you know, not necessarily equal and interesting thought, a conversation we'll have this week as we talk about the money side of education week. >> very good. and you're going to apologize to mark hanes for the comment off the top. >> it wasn't mark's wind i was talking about. >> thank you very much. there it is. thank you so much.

international superstar erin burnett. >> don't forget to tune in tomorrow with the conversation on the nation's schools with collin andal ma p al mal ma pow. the solution is simple. close the schools and fire everyone. you're watching "morning joe," brewed by starbucks. replant a forest? maybe you want to rebuild homes for those in need? or, maybe you want to help improve our schools? whatever you want to do, members project from american express can help you take the first step. vote, volunteer or donate for the causes you believe in at membersproject.com. take charge of making a difference.

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want to do a good job. they went into teaching because they believed they could make a difference but what that means is we have to be able to identify teachers who are doing well, teachers who are not doing well we have to give them the support and training to do well and ultimately if some teachers aren't doing a good job, they have to go. >> we have all done too much about focusing on bad teachers. what teachers have told us is that focus instead on the tools and conditions we need to do our

jobs. make sure that tenure is not ever construed as a job for life. >> you cannot say that you support removing ineffective teachers when i fire them and you slap me with the lawsuits and the grievances. you cannot say -- wait a second. you can't -- you can't say, oh, the problem with charter schools is only serve some of the kids when, in fact, you're advocating for caps on the charter schools. you cannot say we want more resources to go to kids when in this city joel klein is spelling $100 million a year to pay for teachers you saw it in the movie who aren't actually teaching. i get why that's good for the adults. explain how that's good for children. >> okay. we love, loved, loved learning plaza. >> great. >> awesome. >> we were evacuated. the rain was going sideways and they told us, engineers said that our roof was going to

collapse. b.j. said we should have stayed there -- >> would be on yubtd for forever. >> so famous. >> throw in a couple of electrocutions and we might hit a million. >> little weather problems. >> storm front through new york. >> fine tomorrow. so we're here inside standing up because we just made it about your book "don't vote." >> it's a hopeful -- >> terrible. >> it's a -- >> season of cynicism. >> warm, fuzzy -- >> cry for help. >> to show the book cover again, why the hell did you dress like that? >> i was going to play golf. i'm ever 60. that's how we dress when we're golfing. education. i touch on that in there. actually, it's been a great morning for education. kids, come in out of the rain. >> yeah. >> that's one of the main things. >> we taught them that. >> you know, i was just -- in

the course of writing this book about sort of the general failure of politics i came across the school budget. a little local school budget in new hampshire. it's like $13,500 per kid per year. rural school district. >> right. >> i'm thinking, we got maybe put the kids together. tear down the schools. sell the football field. put the kids together in a group of 15. pay $200,000 a year for the teacher. they could have aristotle. they wouldn't have band practice but aristotle. >> that's good. >> that's my solution to the education problem. >> we wasted a whole week. >> positive. >> aristotle. >> running down the hall for this? >> it seems to me, lawrence, we have come a long way. pat paulson in 1968 said vote or get off a pot. here you have p.j. o'rourke saying in 2010, don't vote. >> it is not the craziest idea.

>> really? >> here as you have been in the back room we lengthed officials. what you have to know about them is they believe that every single one of those votes that they got was an expression of love, not -- not lesser of two evils do i really have to do this? why is there no one else? none of the above. oh, okay. i'll vote for him. >> right. >> it goes to their heads and so, you know, this message -- >> pat buchanan. >> don't encourage them. >> pat buchanan feels that way about every hanging chad in palm beach county. >> people that voted for him. >> they did. >> a lot of jewish people in south florida, obviously, love pat buchanan. mark halperin, has his base. >> always has been. >> there is a none of the above in nevada and this year it's a damn good thing. >> a lot of unhappy people. >> senate race. >> can't -- none of the above means the encourage it can get. >> yeah. >> so tonight, on another note,

although i fear getting him started -- we don't have the fan for you inside to blow your hair back. >> outdoors, with me working outdoors without hair spray -- >> 10:00 eastern time, the debut of "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> 7:00 p.m. pacific. >> your guest tonight? >> mr. joe biden, vice president. >> that's great. >> of the united states. >> that's big. >> i like to start big. >> huge. you will follow up with? >> next night we are going to have -- stick me with the vice presidential theme from a possible vice presidential family, levy johnston. mike bloomberg, mayor of the most important city in the country. levy should stick around. he is running for mayor. much to learn. >> have you been inspired by p.j.'s writing this morning? >> i have. you talk about putting the

country on the diet. you call the senate and the house flabby pair of butt cheeks that needs firming up. please explain this. >> yeah. i think that really they should go out and get as much exercise as possible because it keeps them out of the building. you know? >> the gym is in the building. >> keeps them off the floor. >> all right. >> can they -- can these guys jog and vote at the same time? they probably can. but honestly, whole message of the book is we got a lot of tools in life. do we want to use politics for every -- do we want to use the chainsaw to change our battery in the watch? >> i don't know. probably not. >> i really like my new chainsaw. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> lawrence? all the best. >> very excited about the show tonight. it's over. >> it is time. >> why don't you call him the -- what do you call these two? halperin and heilemann. >> game change boys.

>> how long to run here? four minutes. >> bone dry. >> she was -- >> soaked. >> thank you so much. >> thank you for being with us tonight. watch lawrence tonight. tomorrow right here interviewing general colin powell and his wife. >> you can review my show on tomorrow morning's show. i'll leave you room for that. >> thank you so much. willie, if it's way too early, what time is it? >> "morning joe" but right now it's time for "the daily rundown with chuck and savannah." rahm will have to make a decision quickly because running for mayor in chicago is a serious enterprise. >> is this the week the white house chief of staff makes his move and the president on the move today trying to get some campaign momentum going. on the run, residents flee homes in wisconsin after a 120-year-old levee begins to

fail. a nbc news event. education nation. an in depth look at the state of our children's schools. new york mayor bloomberg live and what are they doing right? good morning. it's monday, september 27th, 2010. i'm savannah guthrie. >> i'm chuck todd. let's get to the rundown. welcome to a special edition. the focus, of course, education nation. nbc and msnbc launched a big week of events highlighting the deteriorating state of our public schools. and our new nbc news "wall street journal" poll, a c or worse and a quarter of people giving public schools a "a" or "b." a majority of folks, 65% are willing to pay higher dwal taxes to directly improve american schools. >> money alone won't get it done n. aex collusive interview with matt