robert rubin opened the forum. >>> okay. i think we'll get under way. good morning. i'm bob rubin. and on behalf of my colleagues at the hamilton project, i look forward to talking about the machine age. before i lay out some of the issues, let me say a few words about the hamilton project. we started about nine years ago. we are not an institution, but rather, we're a small partnership of policy experts, former government officials, academics and business leaders organized as an advisory council. and our architecture is totally open. when we have policy proposals, they are commissioned from leading experts around the country, and then they are peer reviewed rather than coming from internal staff. our purpose is to support policy development and to support serious as a purpose of discussion, debate and dialogue. we believe that is particularly important at this time when, unfortunately, the public policy debate has become so affected by politics, by ideology, and by opinion that is not grounded in facts or objective analysis. the hamilton project works in partnership with the brook

the next portion includes opening remarks by former treasury secretary robert rubin and the first panelcussion. it runs just over an hour and 40 minutes. >> on behalf of my colleagues at the hamilton project i welcome you to today's discussion with the future work in the machine age. before i laid out the issues. we started about nine years ago. we are a partnership, small partnership of policy experts former government officials, academics and business leaders. and if the architecture is totally open. when we have to policy proposals they are commissioned from leading experts around the country and then they are reviewed rather than coming from internal staff. our purpose is to support policy development and the purpose of the policy discussion debate and dialogue. we we we be the facet is particularly important at this time when unfortunately the public policy debate in the united states has become so affected by politics, by adding knowledge he and my opinion that isn't grounded in facts or an object of analysis. the hamilton project works with the brookings institution and brookings

joining me from atlanta is attorneys angela johnson and robert rubin, whose clients are among those educators you both with us this morning. when you look at what has happened, do these convictions represent justice being served from your perspectives? >> from my perspective, no melissa, my client pam served the atlanta public schools for 27 years. she was a first grade teacher. first grade scores did not count towards bonuses and she didn't receive any bonus money. she didn't have any financial incentive to cheat, so i think it's a little different than the narrative that's kind of been spread in what most people think. >> so help me to understand what you see as different. the discourse we have heard is that there were financial incentives here that these teachers were under a great deal of pressure they made changes to these test scores but you're suggesting something else is going on here. help me understand that. >> i would reject that very basis premise that teachers were pressured to cheat, at least in the school that i'm familiar with, my client was the principal of an elementary scho