>> some pa students go to school with ipads in their hands. other students graduate without ever having used a computer. the school-funding debate, on "inside story," next. ♪ good morning, everyone. i'm matt o'donnell. it is sunday, september 18, 2016. let's meet our insiders of the week here on "inside story." nonprofit executive sharmain matlock-turner. good morning, sharmain. >> good morning, matt. >> marketing executive brian tierney. >> morning, matt. >> good morning, brian. ajay raju, attorney. hi, ajay. and we have ed turzanski, foreign-policy expert. >> hey, matt. >> let's get right in on this school-reform debate. education reformers argued in a packed philadelphia city hall courtroom that pennsylvania's formula to fund public schools is not only unfair, it is actually immoral. and while some students don't even get textbooks while wealthier districts have all the bells and whistles in the classrooms, some justices who

were hearing the case that day appeared reluctant to, as they put it, "micromanage" how $10 billion in annual aid goes to the state's 500 school districts. so, here's what you have. could this be a step in the right direction to close the imbalance, 'cause i think everyone pretty much agrees there is an imbalance here. or is this a problem that's so complicated that you just have to blow the whole thing up? ajay raju, i'll look to you first because with the germination project that you do in the city, you talk to so many students out there. what do you think the situation is? >> well, first, just a disclaimer. my law firm, dilworth paxson, argued on behalf of the legislators, and patrick northern, my partner, made the argument. so, i want to be careful about what i say, but let me talk as a person, not as a partner at dilworth paxson. i think generally, if you look at the funding inequity that happens, when you look at less-developed neighborhoods versus the neighborhoods like baldwin, where baldwin and haverford or main line area is,

the kids who go to -- like my kids, who go to baldwin or haverford, have private funding, meaning we give them piano teachers. we give them extra tutors. we give them, in general, often two-parent households and fewer social and other distractions. they go to school not hungry, but well-fed, well-clothed. when you think about the lower-income neighborhoods and especially urban neighborhoods, where kids are coming in, they're not just coming in for education. they're usually coming in hungry. they're dodging bullets on their way to school. the money that is needed to educate them is not just what you do in the classroom, but also the other things. so, if anything, it should be the other way around -- not 33% shortfall in funding, but more funding required to not just educate them but provide the social service that you need so they have competitive leg up so they start at the same starting block as my kids. >> you have a state that is always trying to scramble together funding for anything. that would require even more. so... >> but here -- there's

$10 billion in state funding, right? half of it goes to the 25% of the districts that are the poorest districts. some are saying that instead of being 50% going to the poorest, it should be 60%. it does seem like that is a legislator's decision to make that decision, not a judge, to be honest with you. and so, then you get into -- you talk about a town like lower merion, where they've raised taxes 50% over the last 10 years and saying they don't have a surplus when they've got millions of dollars in surpluses. one of the challenges for this whole educational debate is -- and it does shortchange certain kids in certain situations -- is fundamentally, this solid wall of infrastructure of the teachers unions, they don't want measurement. why don't they want measurement? because they think they're not doing a good job. so, we can't really measure. we can't have schools. we can't have scores. you have all these work rules, et cetera. i believe there's enough money to educate our children if adults, though, have the courage to just say, "here's how we're gonna spend the money, and we're not gonna waste it on ourselves,

and we're not gonna waste it on jobs that really don't exist," et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, 'cause that's where the money's going. >> sharmain? >> matt, i would argue that this is not just a pennsylvania problem. this is a national problem in trying to figure out how to fund education. if you look at new jersey, you look at other states, they're all grappling with this. we can certainly argue over how the money is being spent, and i absolutely disagree with brian. i'm in schools. we are testing everything other than what time you come in in the morning. so, i don't think that there's a question of accountability now. i think the real question gets down to if you are in a district that has low real-estate value, this is how much the local share is going to be. if you're in a district that has high real-estate value, this is what you're ultimately able to make the shares. and the shares are always gonna be different. so, ultimately, the states have to decide, and i think people have gone to court because they're saying, "the legislature will not make a decision. we need the courts to intervene." and i think that clearly there

needs to be a clear argument on both sides of that. but at the end of this, it's about is the state responsible and shouldn't the state ultimately put the money on the table and for us to finally begin to move away from property taxes and really pay for the cost of education at the state level for every student? >> i'm glad you brought that up, sharmain. michigan, as i'm sure you all know, revamped it's school-funding system back in 1994 and made it more based on state taxes rather than real-estate taxes, which is the way it works in pennsylvania. then there was a study this summer, many years later, saying that the disparity in michigan between wealthy and poor school districts has widened even more and is getting wider. so, what do you think about that, ed? >> ajay said something very important, and i'll use the term of art -- wraparound services. the lower the income, the more likely you will need more comprehensive wraparound services because kids come from households where they're not

getting everything they need. one of the things that we don't discuss is how kids coming from single-parent situations wind up more at risk. we talk about it when it comes to funding but not when we're trying to assess what's the best way to address the problem. that is very expensive. it's going to be there for a very long time. one thing that we have not done nearly as much as we should is to offer choice. we do it in higher education. we've got the best higher education in the world because people get to exercise choice. money tends to follow the consumer -- not so in primary and secondary. >> that's why you have one-third, approximately one-third of the kids, who would be in philadelphia public schools have opted out. they're going to charter schools, or they're going to catholic private schools even though they're not catholic. they're taking other options because the parents are saying, while all of us as adults are

debating this, "this is my daughter's only third grade" or "my son's fifth grade. i can't wait for this argument to get settled." and that's the reality of it. if you gave people more choices, you'd have even fewer people going to the public schools. >> but it's not an either/or, and i've been a big part of the school-choice movement. i helped to found a charter school in philadelphia. there still, though, are thousands of other kids who ultimately don't have those choices, and we can't sort of say, "okay, they're okay" while we're sort of helping part of the students. we've got to try to figure out a system that's ultimately -- >> how about letting some of that tuition money go to the catholic system that is proven and has capacity? >> as a postscript, i do agree with brian that this is an issue that should be resolved by the legislature, not in courts, because we do have a system in place. having said that, i also agree that while i think there should be adequate funding and even more funding for lower-income neighborhoods, i think the problem sometimes is the middleman. i think how you spend the money is as big of a problem as

whether or not we'll have enough money. >> let's go to another issue that's sort of related to some of the schools around here. more and more players are taking a knee. the colin kaepernick protest has spread across the country, including in our region. a picture that we will see in a moment is of a woodrow wilson high school football game, where all but two of the players knelt during the national anthem. this is about a week and a few days ago. the school district says that no matter what the players choose to do, it is proud of their engagement, but, at the same time, the camden diocese sent a memo to school administrators saying such behavior could lead to disciplinary action. is this a correct venue, sharmain, to do this? >> i think absolutely that students have a right to be able to say, "this is an issue that i want to be a part of." i think we all have fought for the ability for students and young people to be able to express themselves in this particular instance. it is a nonviolent protest. >> even on 9/11, and i'm talking about kaepernick. >> it's a non -- >> when they're honoring

veterans. >> you can disagree with whether or not you think people should, but the question is, do they have the right to do it? and my answer is they have the right to do it. it's a nonviolent protest. and i don't understand why the kind of hate mail and saying that we're going to -- students should be dismissed from school because they are expressing a particular point of view in a nonviolent way. >> i think it's terrific. i'll tell you why i think it's terrific. because you can do this in our country because we have freedoms. you can't do it in putin's russia, even though donald trump seems to think he's a great guy. you can do it here in america. now, if i was on one of those teams, i wouldn't take a knee. i'd be standing up and pointing to my rear end, because i'd want everybody to know i think these guys are jackasses, okay? i don't know if i can say it. but that's what i'd want to say because that would be my expression. i'd be celebrating those on the knee. i'd want to express how i feel. i wouldn't stand there silently. i'd want them to know that i disagree. that's what so great about the country. >> ed, ajay? >> i think we fetishize protest

in this country. and too many times we say -- and i mean no criticism of my colleagues. too many times we say, "it's fantastic that we can do it here, and, therefore, it's a good thing." well, the act itself has some substance, or it should. and the problem is, there's a disconnect between the act and whatever it is that is being protested. listen. colin kaepernick got it wrong. when you listen to him speak, you say, "mate, you're wrong on the facts." now, does he have a right to do it? of course he does, under the constitution. but so does the employer and everyone else if they decide that this isn't an act that brings us together. it's one that separates us. and oh, by the way, you're wrong on the facts of the issue that you're arguing. that should matter, as well. >> i'd hate to question whether a high school individual understands what he or she is

doing in that moment, but i'm sure other people are going to say that. we were at woodrow wilson, and some of the children were saying, "yeah, i understand what this is all about." >> in high school -- >> but that's what people are saying. >> right, but in high school, i marched on the parkway, which is where the school district used to be, because of the fact that we felt there was not enough school funding and -- >> that is different than not having respect for the flag. >> what do you want to say, ajay? >> we're talking about sunday football, which is essentially where consensual violence among business and multimillionaires happen, right? but for many people, millions of americans, sunday football is holier than church, and for them the sacraments of flat-screen tv and the nachos and others are the holy sacraments of that safe place. and when you do protest where they have a legitimate right to make that protest, remind them about how unholy sometimes our union can be. the fact that we have the right and the freedom to express that

and say that we aspire to be holier, we aspire to be better, that's what the fundamental thing about america is. it may be disrespectful, but they have that right. >> real quick. >> reason we have that sunday getting together is because politics is out of it. the minute you introduce politics -- now we're going to have a discussion as to what happened in ferguson or what colin kaepernick is thinking, the country's not coming together. >> so, when we're talking about concussions and the whole issue of concussions, there's no way that you can ultimately say that this is separated from -- >> what do concussions have to do with standing for the national anthem? >> the owner of a team could say, just as the owner of any kind of business could say, "i don't want you to wear that outfit. i don't want you to express this when people come into the mcdonald's, because that's my business." so, i think there's a real legitimate interest for it. but i do celebrate kaepernick, what he's doing. i just wish i was on that field 'cause i would love to celebrate how wrong he was. >> and we'll see how the nba responds to this because the season will be under way

shortly, and we'll just see. the battle for pennsylvania -- donald trump is, like, hanging around our area all the time. he was in here a couple of times. his running mate, mike pence, was up in scranton. his son donald jr. was in western pa. then president obama held a big rally at the philadelphia art museum for hillary clinton, who is recovering from her illness with pneumonia. clinton will actually be campaigning in philadelphia tomorrow, on monday. meanwhile bloomberg analysis found that pa out of the big rust belt states might be the most difficult for donald trump to win. let me ask you this, brian. is trump's focus on pennsylvania out of desperation or out of strategy? >> i think it's out of strategy, and i think he sees that if he could win pennsylvania, this could be a milestone. and if the state looks like you're getting into late october, he's ahead, i think it sends a good message to everybody else. i can tell you. i was in business with donald trump. i was an investor, i should say, in one of his businesses. nice enough guy, et cetera. and i voted for a republican for president every time since 1976.

this man should not be president of the united states. anybody who says that putin is a strong -- putin is killing people and putting them in jail! ronald reagan would never have said, "brezhnev is a really strong leader." i mean, he wouldn't have said that. so, i think americans, no matter what party or stripe you are -- and, again, i was in business with donald trump. as it came to that, that's fine. but the guy doesn't have the competency. he doesn't have the emotional intelligence. he says crazy things that could really be dangerous for our children. >> if hillary clinton could have been here, she would have. president obama was her surrogate. just the fact that you see both campaigns in pennsylvania must mean it's tight, according to their own polling, right? >> well, of course. and i think we always knew that it was gonna tighten up. but if you look at the pure numbers, there are more democrats. there are probably about, if i saw the numbers correctly, about a half a million more democrats. and so, i think what she needs to do and what president obama and the other surrogates will do

is to go into a couple places. one, they want to make sure they talk to young voters to make sure that those young voters are actually gonna turn out for them. and i think the other thing that they're gonna pay a lot of attention to is make sure that some of the working-class democrats do not ultimately vote republican and vote for donald trump. >> okay, back to "inside story" in a few minutes. don't go away. >> "inside story" is presented by temple university. remarkable change isn't easy, but for those who take charge, it comes naturally. explore temple's impact. visit temple.edu/impact. blinds to go's new motorized blinds and shades.

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right now, take 25% off all motorised blinds and shades. life's just gotten a little bit easier. blinds to go. blinds for life. >> back with "inside story." one of the most watched senate races -- oh, what could it be? the most expensive senate race in u.s. history, according to some. that would be the mcginty/toomey race, and it has tightened. the latest quinnipiac university poll has republican senator pat toomey at 46%, democratic challenger katie mcginty 45%, well within the margin of error, 3.5%. back last month, 6abc/ franklin & marshall poll had mcginty up by 5 points. so, let's go around. some of the big issues in this race -- tpp, gun control, trump, ties to wall street, ties to governor wolf. do you think any of these issues are tipping the scales right here, or just people are paying more attention to this race? >> i think it's difficult to try to figure out exactly any issues

that are sort of working their way through, whether it's at the presidential level or also at the united states senate level. we've seen the commercials, and there's been some issues, i think, around the issues of gun, gun control. i've heard some conversation around ties to wall street and whether or not that's ultimately gonna be an issue. but for right now, i don't see people really talking about issues. i hear more people talking about party and whether or not senator toomey is gonna ultimately work on behalf of pennsylvanians and sort of whatever that sort of means. >> talk about party -- that's when toomey gets nervous because of the straight republican ticket, and they don't vote for trump, and then there he is. >> yes and no. i think senator toomey probably has more crossover support with both democrats and republicans. i don't know if ms. mcginty will have that among republicans. this will turn into a voter-turnout issue -- how many people come in, who's energized, who's not. and if the discrepancy between

trump and hillary was going to be so wide, that may have hurt toomey, but today the gap is narrowing. it's become a real race between a republican, a democrat -- typical senatorial race. >> i think it's confusing for a lot of people, the ads. they all kind of sound and come together. i think what would be good for the country, and necessarily what is, is unfortunately that hillary clinton gets elected, 'cause she wouldn't be my pick, other than it's either her or trump. and then you have to really hope that the republicans keep the senate and the house because that would give us at least stability for the next couple of years. >> and toomey could make or shake that. >> he could be a critical factor in that. >> toomey defies a number of caricatures that his opponents are throwing at him, especially on the issue of guns. he's got gabby giffords and bloomberg, michael bloomberg, supporting him. he had this attempt to reach across the aisle with joe manchin, where they actually had legislation that would have been consequential and took a beating from both parties

because they didn't want that to happen for their own reasons. and i agree with sharmain that right now it's hard to say where this is. the one issue that may come into play has to do with mcginty and her record early in the wolf administration. there's an ad that's being run that points at her, and it's mentioning contemporaneous comments that say she was harshly partisan. she's a big reason why that budget didn't get done. and when she left, wolf was able to strike a deal. in fact, this time around, no mcginty, much faster deal on the budget. now, you can dispute that, but the ad's going to say that. and if toomey can point to temperament and say -- >> funny you mentioned that word, 'cause you want to talk about e-mails? there's an e-mail situation going on with this race, where the republican party is trying to get mcginty's e-mails from when she was chief of staff with the wolf administration. and the word is, the wolf

administration is trying to run out the clock. and maybe it'll release them after election day. do you think they're fishing here? >> look. you want to see e-mails where the word "wolf" is in the e-mail. you want to see e-mails where the word "president barack obama" -- come on. of course it's a fishing expedition. i do think, though, however, in looking at this race that the issue's gonna be whether or not the democrats, as we get closer to election day, are gonna be able to convince voters that if hillary clinton seems to be moving in the right direction, and she's creating some space, whether or not she can make the case that we need a democratic senate in order to balance a republican house so that we can ultimately have the ability to get some things done and create some compromises and hopefully move the country ahead. >> will toomey make it to election day without having said he will support or not support donald trump? >> i think he will. >> yeah. >> i think he will. i think pat toomey -- the

mcginty folks are trying to make him that he's some hard right. he's not. he reaches across the aisle with democratic senator manchin out of west virginia. he supported after -- very smart gun laws, et cetera. he's like a tom ridge-y kind of republican. maybe a little bit more of an egghead kind of a person because that's kind of where he comes from, but i think it's gonna be hard core. and i think he's gonna thread the needle and saying reasonably neutral things about trump and just trying to get through election day. >> where would the race be if joe sestak became the nominee? >> not as close. >> yeah. >> you don't think so? >> no. >> no, i do think that there is some push because she's a woman. we've talked about this before. pennsylvania right now has no women in office at the federal level. >> and never had a female senator. >> and never had a female senator and doesn't have a female in congress right now. so, i think the idea that you can create some energy around the fact that if you're looking for real representation, we need

to have women in power in our state. >> election day is 50 days and some odd left, so, it's coming up. inside stories of the week coming up.

>> "inside story" is presented by temple university. remarkable change isn't easy, but for those who take charge, it comes naturally. explore temple's impact. visit temple.edu/impact. >> inside stories of the week -- we start with sharmain. >> yes. coming this saturday, something really exciting is gonna happen in our country. the smithsonian museum of african-american history and culture is going to open, and we are really excited about it. it's taken a hundred years for this to happen, but sitting right on the mall in washington, d.c., you're going to be able to learn a lot about american history, including african-american history, as well. i hope everybody will take a chance to go and see it. >> thanks, sharmain. brian? >> it looks terrific, and a philadelphia-born architect is part of the design down there. twenty years ago last week,

rebecca rimel of the pew charitable trust, then-governor ridge, then-mayor rendell announced a program to start to market the region to tourists. they each put some money in. and it's had a tremendous impact. it started with the "place that loves you back" -- that campaign, which my agency did. now it's grown -- millions and millions and millions of dollars of economic benefit to the city. so, congratulations, meryl levitz and visit philly. >> thanks, brian. ajay? >> matt, you talked about the germination project earlier. ten contemporary artists donated works of art to our foundation, which we consigned to christie's auction house. and on september 14th, christie's auction house sold the works in their auction. we raised $300,000. all the proceeds to go to help close the disparity between underserved communities and people like us, who are a bit well-off, in terms of overall healthcare. >> congratulations. >> really a great effort. >> thanks, ajay. ed? >> matt, news you can use from fbi director jim comey this week.

for everybody at home, you've got your computer, your cellphone, your television. that little camera? cover it up. turns out that internet trolls, criminals, and even foreign governments are using this as a two-way-communication device. they're looking in at us. the fbi director says at bureau headquarters, they cover that up. be a good idea to do it at home. >> that's "inside story" for this week. we'll see you next week, and i'll see you monday morning on >> i'm nydia han,. >> i'm gray hall, police officers are targeted for the second time after a violent night on the streets of philadelphia. the feds are on the case after a pipe bomb detonates at a south jersey charity run. get ready for the glitz and glamour, emmys are hours away, we have a sneak peek at the big

show. >> those stories and more next on "action news." >> good afternoon, it is

sunday, september 18 i'm nydia han. >> and i am gray hall. here's some of the stories we're following on "action news." seven people are shot and philadelphia police officers come under fire during a violent night in the city. we're live. >> plus, we are learning n