coming up on "asian focus," a trailblazer who is making a difference in public education. plus, we'll learn about a special program designed to make the statehouse easy for minorities and immigrants to navigate. i'm mary sit. all this and more next on "asian focus." [music] >> good morning, everyone and welcome to "asian focus." i'm mary sit. our first guest has devoted his life's work to redesigning public education and bringing high-quality education to our school systems and students. cliff chuang is the associate commissioner for educational

department of elementary and secondary education. he leads the department charter school authorizing work and school. what do you do exactly as the assistant commissionhair? >> so a key part oaf my work is overseeing the state's charter authorizing functionism this is the function of determining who can open a charter school and making sure they're high quality, but i also oversee initiatives related to expanding the time and the traditional district school day as well as innovation schools, which is a version of school independent within districts. i also work on issues related to digital learning, so using tech knowledge to change the way teaching and learning happens in our classrooms and then work related to learning supports, afterschool supports, summer school supports and also working with our earliest learnings with the program for earlylin ugin kindergarten in particular. >> sounds like you do everything non-traditional in education. >> a little. the point of educational

redesign, the center at the department is exploring how to do school differently and how to ensure we innovate and think differently about how we educate our learners and especially those who may not do as well as in our structures. >> working? >> we do want to look at student outcomes but a lot of what we do is very frontedge or cutting-edge in terms of trying new things and it does take some time to figure out that things are working. i think there is some pretty strong research about charter schools and the fact they do work well for many families and. >> apparently because there is a waiting tryst get in there. >> yes, charter schools are quite popular among families in the state and there is a options. >> why do parents want to put their kids in the charter school versus a traditional public school. >> i think parents want, like all parents like myself we want the best options for our kids and not every school is molded and created and works for every child and our

traditional public school districts do a very good job. we're number one in the country in terms of the national test school, but there are families that aren't satisfied with what they have in terms of options. there are somal 62s that struggle and there are models that some parents feel very strongly about having their kids having access to. so charter schools is one way to provide that access tuition degree cliff, let's talk about theert chaer school definition first. aert chaer school is a public >> yes. and anybody can go to it, but certain grade point average or smart enough, just a public school undiffed by public >> yes,. >> just like traditional public schools, right? >> yes. >> and there are differences. what are the differences? >> you are entirely right. it is miss often misunderstand about private school said.

by our tax dollars here in the state, but they are authorized through a process that's different than traditional schools. traditional schools are governed by local school committees elected by the >> ok. >> and they make decisions around school policy whether to open or close schools in that community. charter schools were created in 1993 through our big education reform act and it gives the state board of education power to authorize these new public schools and to give a charter to an independent group of vinyls individuals who have applied to a school. >> like a group oaf parents could do this? >> a group of parents, teachers, business folks, community folks, anyone. the law is pretty broad about who can apply but our standards are, pi do say so myself, are very high in terms of allowing someone access. >> your office is yes and no. >> my office helps advise the commissioner and the board in

terms of making those hard votes to determine creating new school. s. we have very high standards around the design of the school and around the capacity of the group of individuals who wants to though school. once they're open charters have to be renewed every five years, meet very high standards around academic performance, organizational availability and the reason 58 local funding. they are also eligible for the same federal funding, title 1, special educational funding. >> cliff, does charter school specialize in special things, one for the arts, the sciences, that kind of thing? >> each founding group can design how to design their school. we have a whole variety across the state. we have a few public montessori schools, a chinese school thin western part of the state. >> so chinese and english? >> yes. the goal is to graduate students proficient in both

squeeze english. >> and not like you and me, we can say. [native language] >> they can speak better than us, yes. >> and we have arts focus schools, science-focused schools, we have schools focused on a rigorous college prepatory program. >> cliff, critics of charter schools say it really has created a two-tier system where the kids who just happen to be little smarter may be come from families a little more well off, so they're not impoverished, emeshed in drug wars, they go to these schools self selection process and money sort of follows a charter schools, where is the poor, traditional public school, they struggle with funding, the worst of the worst kids and they can't push them out. there is no where to take them. they have to push them up even though they're not qualified to the next grade. critics? >> the data doesn't necessarily support those drifticismsism charter schools serve a high proportion of

low-income students. charter schools are open and free. there are efforts underway right now particularly in boston to ensure that all families have the same options in terms of picking between charter and public schools and so there are, there is a unified enrollment system planned where a parent can pick between both public schools and charter schools to ensure everyone has the same access. right now the law requires a lottery, if there are more parents who want to go to the school, but charters do abide by the same rules related to special education, english language learners, they serve allcomers. >> you're all about parents' options and you don't feel it is a two-tier system. >> no, i think there are differences because the law does give charter school more flexibility. and i think there are superintendents and others who are pushing for the same kind of flexibility and i'd like to see # allal 62s have that flexibility. >> cliff, let's switch a bit. president obama recently said too much testing in schools.

there shouldn't be more than 2%, i totally agree. my kids, mom we're doing another test today and then what are you doing, well we're watching movies because the seventh graders are doing all of the tests and not really learning. what do you think about that and is this too little too late or what? >> i think the testing movement has been very important in raising stand said of education, particularly in massachusetts. we're one of the first states in 1993 as part of the same edward formt that created charter schools we created the state assessment here. as you've heard we're undergoing a system on whether or not to upgrade our testing system. i do agree we don't want to overfocus on testing but i would say annual testing is similar to what you do when you take your child to the doctor every year to see how the child is doing and that information is really important for me as a parent but also for me as a -- to know what's irk working and what's not. >> do you think 2% is enough? >> it depends on what you can't as a test per se or an

children take chapter tests at the end of their chapters which, you know i'm not sure exactly. >> talking about standarderedized tests that take four hours? >> i think that number is probably in the right ballpark but i would also hope in the spirit of flexibility that individual schools can decide what works best for their families and listen to their parents about what the parents want. >> cliff, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing public education today in. >> i think the biggest challenge is related to achievement gap and making sure all families, no matter what their socio economic background are able to become college and career ready and our school systems need to adapt to support every child that's why innovations are so important to make sure that for those students where the traditional day doesn't work we figure out ways to improve that achievement. >> that's a huge global yes. >> and you're working with poverty because a lot of kids

are just poor and they don't eat breakfast or have enough tough. >> resources are really important in terms of making sure they're sufficient resources but i think how we use those resources and having the flexibility and having the educators, teachers closest to the children be able to use those resources and deploy those resources in a way that best fits the child, that's one of the biggest challenges, how to make sure our education policy is really driven by what's best for the students. >> and tailored to that neighborhood and those students. >> cliff cuang thank you so much for being with us. coming up next, if you're an immigrant it is likely you

way our next guest will tell us about a program he directs that shows you the ropessism stay with us. many immigrants and minorities may have important issues in the communities but they get lost in the maze of legislative bureaucracy, well

designed for them, a commonwealth seminar a two-month crash course that offs the basics on understanding the state budget, legislative process and working with the press. here to tell us more is leverett wing, a community activists and the newly appointed executive director of the commonwealth seminar. who can apply for this >> pretty much anybody can apply and our mission is to demystify the statehouse. one of the biggest things that stand in the way is becoming involved in politics, getting involved in policy debates is statehouse. it seems to be this incredible monlift where you just don't know what's going on. our mission is to kind of go through things, it is a six week program. we go through basebs as in-depth as we can from budgetary, from the budgetary process to the legislative process, lobbying, media, trying to get folks media savey and having to meet

>> who teaches the course? >> we get professors, be actually have legislators, staff who come in who have been involved. we have ole' timers like me who have been there in the swast know the ropes. so we get a really great, diverse group of teachers that session to says. we have session to session. we have regulars and they enjoy doing it. >> and drow get many people come in saying what to say, what newt say, like to thel truth. >> or how to reach out to media to get your story or your cause covered. >> what's the biggest question who take the course in the beginning? what's their confused point? >> how to get access, meet the legislature. and you'll be surprised it is a very basic question of i have a problem, i have an issue i want to get involved in, how do i access my legislator and it is surprisingly simple, you just kind of call or just pick up

or a lot of legislators have office hours. you can go, they have open office, they have staff, so it's relatively simple but it is surprising how many folks just don't know that. >> you've been moving in these halls a lot. are most pretty accessible and open to the little guy. the person off the street who is not some big name or associated with some big organization, do they actually listen and sit down. it is both. a lot of legislators. >> it varies, it is just like any business, like any field, it varies. >> it depends on who that person is. >> exactly. >> i've worked with legislators who will take any appointment at any time and they'll go to any event for any constituent and i've worked with some who are sort of, i don't want to say above it, aloof i guess is the bestward, but they vary, it varies from individual to individual. >> so so part of this process slains the state budget, that's huge.

>> it is. >> how do they do that? >> it's mostly sort of the step-by-step, when does the budget get passed. you've got the governor's budget in january, you've got the house representative in march or april, you've got the senate, may or june and then you've got the vetoes, conference committee, the vetoes and veto overrides and finally get it signed. so a lot of it is just basic timetable, timetable timeframes and then how to lobby or advocate for the money that you're looking to get for a particular cause. >> i was just going to ask you about lobbying. do you need in this day and age to hire professional lobbies to get your cause in front of the legislator or can just grassroots type people do it. >> if you're well organized enough then you can do it. we've done in the asian-american community when it came to creating the massachusetts asian-american commission it was vetoed by

then governor romney but the legislature overrode it largely in part because asian-americans from around the state rode in. we probably had 200 or 300 letters based upon a grassroots letter writing campaign. >> you organized that? >> yeah. [laughs] >> but it can be done. may be i should have charged for my services. >> but you're not a grassroots guy, you're experienced, you know how this works. >> but that's part of the training we do. if people are still relying on me in 10, 20 years we've done something wrong. the whole goal is to train folks so there can be a whole field, well god forbid you don't want field of me, but you've got a fold of folks who know thousand process works. >> this program has been around for seven years? >> over a decade. >> but you're the new executive director, how would you like to put your stamp ton and sort of shape it? >> well right now it is

largely in boston at the statehouse or in locales around the statehouse. i want to take it, may be we can't do it,. >> a -- . >> a mobile unit. >> maybe my goal is to do an intensive day in springfield or an intensive day in winster because it is hard for folks for folks in the western part of the state to come into boston and take a six week course. >> can you skype your classes or web nars. >> that's something that would be a great idea. oh, that would be, -- i'll give you credit for that. that would be awesome. that's how i'll open it, and preface everything. >> let me ask you this, how successful has this program been? do you have success stories on people that have gone through the program? >> yes. probably close to a thousand graduates. we've got in turns of those graduates a number of them are high-ranking, or high-ranking staffers within the statehouse , outside of the statehouse in federal government.

speakers be had is now iona presley, she was a staffer for senator carie, she is now a boston city counciller, so there are a number of folks who came through. >> so they learn about the political process and become the person. >> or their interest is peaked little further. >> some may not want to pursue it, it just may be good enough for them to know how it works, but some will get so excited about it they'll pursue it. >> you know how to engage the community and get people who don't care about politics to care about it because it involve said their own world. how do you do that and organize groups of people like that, get them engaged. i know you're doing it right now with getting asians to vote in the upcoming election, tell me why it is important to get people engaged in politics? >> usually there is always some sort of gavelinizing issue that will drive folks to

for i think i mentioned a little earlier we were able to gavelinize the community lobby for different things. one was getting a parcel taken over by the big dig back in the chinatown once the central artery, the elevated artery was taken down. another was when that artery was taken down they were going to put an offramp right by this senior center, a school and a church and so had community rallied around it, paraded around the statehouse banging gongs, it was [laughs] and back in those days i was one of the very few asian staffers and people were coming up and like what's going on. and so that was able to raise thattishue. >> what happened to the off-ramp? >> it got moved to somewhere a lot less dangerous. it is now the off-ramp that goes off behind what used to be the boston harold building. parallel to root 93.

issue on things people are emotional about and get them involved, right? >> exactly and hopefully they'll stick. >> how are you getting 20,000 asians to go out and vote in a few days? [laughs] well it is actually, the 20,000 is geared towards 2016. this 2015 in a couple days is more of a test run. i'm excited because we've got close to 20 state-wide and local organizations signed on in our -- . >> most are political, they just want to do their business and make money, right? >> traditionally when we were first together 20 years ago that was the perception. slowly but surely it's earn ited around and these community organizations, a lot of businesses involved they've gotten involved and they've got civic engagement programs, folks who deal in voter registration and voter activation and get out the vote campaigns. so they've got those

components now and its roor really exciting. we've got 20 organizations signed up. this week is ort sof a test run to test for next year and then the other thing we're going to at next year is a church component because we've got so many asian churches in the area or religious component and we can mobilize that area as well. >> to get their portions to register to vote. >> register and a lot of folks are just registered but aren't activated. >> what do you mean, they're not voting? >> they don't want to do their jury duty. [laughs] we've got 220,000 eligible in the state, of those 65,000 are registered to vote and based upon a study by umass newt for asian-american studies only 39,000 of those actually vote. so out of 220,000 you've got less than 40,000 voting. >> what do you say to make people vote and make them care and make them say it makes a difference?

anyway i'll stay home. >> last year's effledges was decided by 40,000 votes, that's just less than 2%. so our community in and of itself with the inactive voters, the unregistered voters could have swung the election one way or given current governor bake a bigger mandate. so we can make a huge difference. thank you so much for be withing us. i need that course. your seminar, the little mini versions. >> we'll hang out after the show. >> coming up next, the cellist andrew mark plays j.s. bach.

our last segment features a cello solo performed by

andrew mark, a former u.s. artistic ambassador, andrew mark has given recitals and master classes throughout europe, central and south america. he's also a past silver medalists at the osaka chamber competition, performed with every major conductor including andrew burnstine. here is andrew mark performing

that's all for this addition of "asian focus." if you have any story ideas or guests you'd like to refer me to send me an e-mail at msit at whdh.com. thanks for joining us, i'm mary sit and i'll see you