. >> i am from finland originally spent somewhere -- summer in new york and a revised the american cities are not what they seem to be an harlem had a history that was not african-american in the beginning and there's a small finnish community in harlem so when i joined "the baltimore sun" in 1969 that was a story i was interested is how various cities and neighborhoods change and that is what the book is all about. >> host: it sounds like if you started with that interest in 1969 it was quite a journey for the book to come out. >> it was quite a journey first as a reporter in south africa than the soviet union and the talk comes together in this book. >> host: tell us about some of your findings. >> 18 is my eight uneasiness was one term i do not use of the book because it is accepted by the academic community but there are two versions white people saw blockbusters says destabilization merger of them away. black people generally in baltimore saab blockbusting is something good that opened housing for the blacks. >> host: m&a stop you hear what does blockbusting mean the? >> it has nothi

you cannot compare finland and their results with the performance of america. it has a very diverse population and the students are thrown into the mix. we have to be very careful when we make these comparisons to understand it the united states, we require children to go to school from kindergarten to 12th grade. high school is optional -- for them to go to high school, they have to apply and get into the high school. in many cases, it is not universal educational system in finland as it is here in the united states. we have to be careful about comparing apples and oranges. host: the next call is from treasure island, florida. caller: i would like to talk about why that has a statewide school board. the guests said we should have less school boards in less control. host: are you suggesting that hawaii is a good model? caller: the administration is top heavy. all of the funding goes to pay for administrators. there is hardly any money left for classrooms, school teachers , and he is talking about teachers are precluded from being fired on merit. they should be

so what you see in countries like finland and japan is a way -- finland spent a lot of time on the inductionnd recruitment and selection process of teachers. but what they do that is quite different than anything we do in the united states is the focus on teacher development in school when teachers get there, in real time, with real professional development,.akx not off the sf from someone else. they do this by having teachers work together. it is excruciatingly expensive, because what you are doing is you are taking teachers working together, diagnosing what kids need, building on each other's practice, polishing the stone, thinking about the craft. like we do in grand rounds in medicine. dvlike we did in a bigm that i had the honor to work in. that is how teachers really learn the plea to teach. but it costs a lot of money, -- that is how teachers really learn deeply to teach. >> do we need to raise the standards for getting into education to start out with? >> it is both the issue of who comes in to teach, but i am focused on, regardless of who is there, how do we help create the versat

>> yes, i think that sweden and finland, i think these countries have a tremendously strong social net. i was looking at "the economist" last night on the plane and it is very low. and china and india are worse than the united states in the spread of wealth. but a part of that is the function of the fact that there's so much wealth at the top. it is not that the poor have gotten poorer but there are many more well-off people. yes, i would say the scandinavian countries, probably the netherlands, they do a much better job, much stronger support of labor, labor participating on corporate boards, and they are economically strong and getting stronger. >> we are more homogeneous in this country by a long shot. >> yes, that is true. they have some pocket of guest workers that are staying put. but that is an important practice. i don't think it is economical. >> japan is the same thing. >> they really are xenophobic. uncomfortable around strangers. but we are heterogeneous -- but we're used to that. you go on the ucla campus and i can see every skin color in the world. it is not threatening.

and so what you see in countries like finland and japan is the way in which -- finland spends a lot of time as the chairman said on the induction and recruitment and selection process of teachers. but what they do that is quite different than anything we do in the united states is the focus on teacher development in school when teachers get their in real time with real professional development. not off the shelf from someone else. and they do this by having teachers work together. it's expensive. because what you're doing is you're taking teachers together, working together, diagnosing what kids need. building on each other's practice, polishing the stone. thinking about the craft. in some ways like we do in ground rounds in medicine. like one does in a big law firm that i had -- you know, that i had the honor to work in. and that's how teachers really learn deeply to teach. but it costs a lot of money. and that's why a lot of school districts never, ever do it. >> what if you have the lsats for law and it's hard to get into medical school. do we need to raise the standards for getting

life impact, we've already seen, they had a northern ganat, a type of bird that migrates from new finlande gulf of mexico each year, diving bird, drops down below the surface, picks up fish. there was one that was rescued a few days ago, at a rescue center in the area expected to be rehabilitated and released farther west in the gulf. there have been reports of 20 different instances of turtles, 20 turtles all together along the gulf coast, mainly mississippi, that were actually found dead right along the surf. some of them were actually kemp ridley turtles, an endangered turtle. not exactly sure if their death is a direct cause or link to the oil, but possibility that they ate fish that had been swimming through the oil. they'll find out in an investigation in a couple days. right now, in my absolute back or to our back a few miles southward we have the delta national wildlife refuge home of 400 species of endangered or protected animals and susceptible to the oil as it comes closer, so, too, a lot of grasses. long-term exposure kills grasses. when that happens islands can fall apart. >>

with mainly crises hitting countries like spain, norway, finland, sweden, japan, et cetera. our surprise perhaps reflects the parochial nature of americans who ignored crises in other countries with a sense that we were too smart to let something happen here. understanding what happened and what we should do to prevent further crises is therefore critical in order to maintain stable growth. in the spirit we're delighted that president has made this lecture part of the world leaders forum. the president is here, obviously. and will introduce our distinguished speaker. thank you. [applause] >> i'd like to extend a special thanks to david and his colleagues at the program for economic research, tonight's cosponsor as you just heard, for playing a critical role in bringing this together. one of the things we hope for students when they come to columbia is they check their preconceptions at the 116th gate. and open their minds to new perspectives, new experiences and new people they might never have encountered or considered. it is one of the best and most attractive arguments fo

finland as we heard recently in this city, teachers are recruited from the top 10% of the graduating class. teaching is the most sought out profession, more so than law and medicine. but now this happens on its own. it has to be part of a comprehensive and seismic shift in our discussions about the future of our education system in this country and we need our teachers to help us shape the discussion. we already make great progress in some of these forms in the race in the race to the top and district are now being challenged to make progress and train about the lowest performing schools implementing data systems linked to better assessments and fairly and equally to shipping teacher talent that these reforms will be successful if they're done with teachers, not done to teachers. at every step of the way teachers must have a seat at the table. we need to reward teachers whose students are making significant bank gains in the classroom. we need to provide them with the means and time to help share their skills with less experienced teachers and we need to encourage team effort in the

world war, or roughly one every three years with major crises hitting countries like spain, norway, finland, sweden, japan etc. supply is perhaps reflexed a parochial nature of americans who ignored crises in other countries with the sense we were too smart to let something happen here. understanding what happened and why we should do to prevent further crises is therefore critical in order to maintain a stable growth. in the spirit we are delighted that the volunteer and the staff have made it is important lector part of this year's world leaders from. president bollinger is here, obviously, and we will introduce our distinguished speaker. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for joining this evening. i would like to extend a special thanks to david and his colleagues at the program for economic research, tonight's co-sponsored, as you just heard will play a critical role in putting this together. one of the things we hope for students when they come to columbia is that the check the preconceptions at the 116th street gate and opened their mind to the perspectives, new experiences and new pe

world war, or roughly one every three years, with major crises hitting countries like spain, norway, finlandjapan, etc. our surprise perhaps reflects the parochial nature of americans, who ignored crises in other countries with the sense that we were too smart to let something happen here. understanding what happened and what we can do to prevent further crises is therefore critical in order to maintain stable growth. in this spirit, we have this important lecture as part of the world leaders forum. president bollinger is here as is our distinguished speaker. thank you. >> oh thank you all for joining us this evening. i would like to extend a special thanks to david and his colleagues at is program for economic research. that is tonight's co-sponsor, as you heard. they played a critical role in bringing this together. they check their perceptions at the gate, and they open their minds to new perspectives, and new people they might never have encountered were considered. it is one of the best and most attractive arguments to coming to the greatest, most global of american cities, graduate sch