. >> mayor cornett, how do you begin to prioritize in a time of economic stress? we all agree in this room, preaching to the choir, there's a straight line between educational achievement and economic development. there's a good reasons for private companies and investments to be engaged. at some point, choices have to be made about resources. eventually, you have to decide as a chief executive where the emphasis goes. how do you begin to do that? >> first, public safety is the priority of city government. from the educational perspective, it's important to keep the philanthropist engaged. if they get to the point where they don't feel like their investment is making the difference, they will withdraw. you have to keep it going between the leaders, superintendent, school board, philanthropist, and city government. the more people, the better chances you will be. in times like that, when budgets get squeezed. i hear them talking about having to cut the budget, you got to keep the philanthropist involved. >> give me an example how that's worked. >> we have a program

>> we have many programs similar to what mayor cornett said.s and make sure the 3, 4, and 5 year-olds have what they need. that's a big part. we are lucky to have big funders and a lot of people that want to do these sorts of things. i think it's had an impact. >> i'd like to divide the rest of the conversation to two general topic areas. who's teaching and who's learning? starting with you governor mcdonnell, the question of who's teaching is tenture and collective bargaining and testing. how would you prioritize that in terms of what our concept here, which is how to keep kids of dropping out of school, how important is that? and how do you change it if you need to change it? >> i'm sorry. how important is? >> focusing on who's teaching, whether it's a question of tenure, or collective bargaining, or testing? >> i think it's very important. again, able, talented teacher in the classroom with a reasonable class size is critically important. i think all of the literature tells you good outcomes with those students. we are constantly looking for

tracy cornett of our dallas station ktvt reports. >> reporter: what do you get when you mix lemons, waterke a lasting impact. both thousands of miles away in sendai, japan. >> -- in japan. >> reporter: and right inside your child's heart. >> we need to make enough money to build their houses back, and so -- so that's why. >> what i'm learning is that kids want to help. they want to know. and if we give them the opportunity to help, they really can make a difference. >> reporter: after last year's disaster in haiti, melissa's son wanted to help. so together the dallas mom helped him run a lemonade stand to raise money for relief. they made $150 in under two hours which sparked an even bigger idea. >> we set up a facebook page and this whole thing exploded through the power of social media. >> reporter: lemons to aid exploded all right. to more than 140 events. all run by children throughout america, israel, england and canada. a simple solution with a lifelong lesson. that whatever your age, conviction and compassion really can change the world. >> i feel good for doing this. >> indeed. th

i would like to mayor cornett to weigh in.city, 63% graduation rate, seven drop out factories. not only how high, but what do you do about it once it's up there? >> i think the graduation rate in the city reflects the state average. we have one the 24 districts that has issues. one program that we have is a truancy program. we have our police department involved. the most that the kid starts showing a tendency to be truant, we have police officer on the house. if we can engage the parent on the front end, we'll probably have a better chance of creating a drop out problem. >> can i ask you a question? how do you have the resources to put a officer on the front porch? >> if we don't, we're going to be dealing with the kid six months later. we're going to use the police officer then or later. we got to keep them in school. you let them drop out of school, the idea that he's going to run into a police officer is almost guaranteed. >> my question is that your education program is focused on rebuilding all of the schools in the city