here's a politician who's also e immersed in education issues and went door to door campaigning for fenty, and i said why would anyone reach out for a michelle rhee kind of potential considering what happened? and he said, you know, people like us are so desperate to make a department, some kind -- dent, some kind of improvement. so it is going to happen. he offered as proof this avalanche of offers that came to michelle after she stepped down. so i think kevin's right. these reforms are going to be tried again and again and not just michelle-like versions. so now i'm going to pass it to michelle who amazed me by agreeing to talk about her relations with the press. [laughter] probably her least favorite topic. but considering this is organized by education writers' association, she played along as a good sport. so turn it over to you. >> my relations with the press. [laughter] um, i think my relationship with the press was complicated. let me say the first time a lot of very good things happened because of the press attention that we got. with the efforts that we were putting fort. forth.

fenty for your time. -- 54 your time. -- thank you. >> my name is -- we support this. there are members to work and live -- who work and live at parkmerced. tomorrow, who knows? the houses and apartments. it will grows, what could 10%? i do not have to tell much about that. you know better than me. thank you. >> good evening, my name is tori martinez. of the many points that were made, many being very easy to support, the one. and think was left out is that support for this part is the holistic design taken into account, and there are not really a lot of opportunities in san francisco where there is a benefit on a regional level. being familiar with the design and with the developer and their other projects, their commitment is without equal. thank you. >> good evening. my name is sylvia. the statistics of unemployment. it will help us to have a job. i am a single mother. it is very hard for me for the last seven years with a job. i think this is a really great opportunity. thank you. >> hi, tom murphy. thank you. i grew up in san francisco, and i am a loan officer. th

>> when, when mayor fenty and i started our effort together, we talked about the transformation of thehool district for two terms over an eight-year period. and not that at the end of eight years everything would be perfect, but at the end of eight years we really felt that the entire city would be able to look back and say this is a wildly different school district than it was when they got started. and, you know, it's interesting because during my three and a half years here, i was with often greeted with advice, maybe, from these people who would say you need to slow down. you are doing -- you're trying to do too much too fast, and you need to understand that change doesn't happen overnight. and i will tell you that none of the people who said that to me had children in the d.c. public schools. see, i have my children in the school district, and i knew every single day that every decision that i was making was going to impact them one way or another. and i, i simply wasn't willing to say that, you know, to another family, okay, just give me five more years, and then the school that

. -- fenty, chief. thank you for all your hard work. it is not easy. we need to get the issue out so we don't have a crisis situation. when these 479 officers decide they're going to retire. just before we go to public comment, one suggestion, we should take advantage of the ability to bring back the retired officers, and that is something that i think we get experienced, well-trained, veteran officers. i was wondering about that status. the talent pool has been trained, cleared, and has proven themselves already. >> commissioners, it is primarily a funding issue. like many of the prop f employes, they are hired against grant funds and special projects. the limited capacity, we have limited numbers of prop f. we rely on investigators. we have the academy currently working on the laterals. it is part and parcel of the value and cut expenditures are going to be determined t, and tn dedicating sufficient funds for the retirees. president mazzucco: my point is once we have the attrition rates, it would be easier to fill them with part-time officers than th

a plane flying to washington and happened to be on the same flight as former mayor adrian fanti -- fenty. it reminded me that when he first asked you to take on this assignment you told him then that you were going to be a political liability. did you think you were going to be the kind of liability politically that you turned out to be? >> yes. that is exactly what i told him that. i said, "you do not want me for this job. for the kinds of things that we would have to do to turn this district around, it will cause a tremendous political opposition and headaches." he said that as long as we knew that what we were doing was going to increase the quality of schooling kids were getting, he had no problem taking the heat on all those things. i did know that the changes that we made when absolutely cause a lot of room for. there is no way that you can take a dysfunctional system like the one we had in washington, d.c. -- when we inherited the school district, 8% of eighth graders were on grade level in mathematics. you do not take a system that is that broken and radically change it quickly a

example would be if you're sitting on fob fenty and you don't have a good signal to connect, and you're trying to put in the data, you're not going to put it in. and in some cases if you're sitting in kabul, it is easy, and we are doing it. but i can't tell you that i -- my organization can do it 100 president of the time -- 100 % of the time because of issues like that. >> would you say when it has been easy you've done it 100 president of the time? >> i can tell you since january we've done it 100% of the time period in afghanistan and 50% of the time in iraq. >> and when can we expect to see it 100% of the time in iraq, sir? >> i don't have an exact answer, but as soon as humanly possible, i can tell you that. >> okay. mr. amey, i'd like your comments on my minor outburst here. >> i think it boils down to this type of work has been considered red tape. i think this is the kind of, you know, it's been a procedural burden, and that's kind of the reputation it has, and at that point this is the kind of work that's being gutted out of the system. both from a preawards side of thing, a co

papers that dealt with social and political concerns, and so they ought to have been immune from the o fenty charges, and that was not the case. i would say that, you know, this was the main tactics they used to stifle the papers. i could not find a single example with an obscenity connection that was upheld, but you can see how it was distract r for papers and they were busted for loitering and whatnot. they were victims of other groups, someone fire bombed the paper. in san diego there was a long series of attacks on the underground papers there. the guy from 60 minutes and front line was an underground journalist in the period in san diego, and later, you know, some guy affiliated with the minutemen said they had help from the police and was involved with this. the fbi was heavily involved, they kept data on the publishers and printers. here in san fransisco, an fbi memo surfaced where they had the idea a lot of the underground papers were getting advertisements from large record companies, and he suggested the companies should be approached and told not to advertise in the underground pr

the other point, as we go down the road -- adrian fenty did not survive the election.hat was pretty bad. someone mentioned what he said afterwards and asked him if he would have done anything different. his answer was, absolutely not. i have three grandchildren and two of them are in the little rock public school system. i want to applaud you and tell you how my heart goes out when i see "waiting on superman." you see when parents are committed to their kids and yet, you have 300 or 400 vacancies and 20 spots or 30 spots. the lottery selects those kids. we cannot wait. you are absolutely correct. my question is, when are we going to have general distribution for "waiting on superman"? all of us are concerned about where we are as a country. some of the fat side up in washington the day before yesterday about how we are 18th and 19th and 20th and with the first in terms of what is going -- some of the facts up in washington the day before yesterday about how we are 18th and 19th and 20th in terms of what is going on in the world. welcome and thank you for being a part o

mayor adrian fenty, lost his bid for re-election. >> it didn't make me lose faith in the system.le my efforts. >> here in d.c., what do you think it takes to bridge the education gap? >> having high quality teachers is one. we think that having choices for families is another piece because we don't ever want any family to be trapped in a failing school. >> rhee is making education reform a family affair of her own. she's engaged to another education activist. they've been called the education celebrity couple. >> one of the most outspoken mayors in the country on education reform. we can come home and talk to one another about something that we both care about a lot. it is kind of great. >> rhee says she'll join forces for change and she's calling on every american to fight with them to save our nation's schools. >> we're at a moment in time right now that i never have seen in my entire career that there is more focus on education. i think a lot of people are saying, you know what? the education system in our country isn't working right now and we need to do something drastic to

example would be if you're sitting on fob fenty and you don't have a good signal to connect, and you're trying to put in the data, you're not going to put it in. and in some cases if you're sitting in kabul, it is easy, and we are doing it. but i can't tell you that i -- my organization can do it 100 president of the time -- 100 % of the time because of issues like that. >> would you say when it has been easy you've done it 100 president of the time? >> i can tell you since january we've done it 100% of the time period in afghanistan and 50% of the time in iraq. >> and when can we expect to see it 100% of the time in iraq, sir? >> i don't have an exact answer, but as soon as humanly possible, i can tell you that. >> okay. mr. amey, i'd like your comments on my minor outburst here. >> i think it boils down to this type of work has been considered red tape. i think this is the kind of, you know, it's been a procedural burden, and that's kind of the reputation it has, and at that point this is the kind of work that's being gutted out of the system. both from a preawards side of thing, a co