the real key was leslie jacobs, paul pasterak and a whole generation of other people in new orleans, most of whom, many of whom were teach for america alums who were deeply determined to address what they viewed is the single most unconscionable crisis in our country and who understood what you understand especially after you've taught successfully in this context which is there isn't a silver bullet to this. >> yeah. >> you change a governance law, that's not going to fix the problem for our kids. >> so you had -- you had a nuke leas in place, poised to take advantage of an opportunity. the opportunity was katrina. and that allowed an awful lot of change to happen in a very short period of time? >> yes. >> i have no argument with that. do you have an argument of that version of events? good. [laughter] >> but that's what we're talking about. we have these nucleuses in place or we could put them in place in lots of different cities but it doesn't change the fact that you can do an awful lot of good sometimes by blowing it up. >> you know what? if we had real leadership right now in a

the real key was leslie jacobs, paul pasterack, and a whole generation of other people in new orleans, most of whom, many of whom were teach for america alums. who were deeply determined to address what they viewed as the single most unconscionable crisis in our country. and who understood what you understand especially after you've thought successfully in this context. there isn't a silver bullet to this. you change a governance law, that's not going to fix the problem for our kids. >> so you had a nucleus in place. that allowed new orleans to change? do you have any argument? good. we have the nucleus in place in lots of city, but it doesn't change the fact that you can do an awful lot of good by blowing it up. >> if we had real leadership right now in a lot of other places determined to solve this problem, if we viewed it as the crisis that it is, and we had the right leadership in place, we would blow it up to use your terminology in lots of other contexts. >> uh-huh. i mean i'm reminded -- by the way, i'm not going to come back and ask you what you mean in other contexts. because