thank you. >> my pleasure. >> rose: wendy kopp is here. she is the founder and c.e.o. of teach for america. while a student at princeton in 1989, she came up with the idea of a national teaching corps. for her senior thesis she imagined an organization that would recruit the brightest graduates to teach in the country's neediest communities. she's here to share what she has learned about the education challenges facing our country and she has a new book called "a chance to make history: what works and what doesn't in providing an excellent education for all." i'm pleased to have her back on this program. welcome. >> thank you. >> rose: where are we and what must we do to reach the goals that we would like to? >> well, my fundamental message was that we have made extraordinary progress in the last 20 years and yet it's humbling to realize how much is left to be done. to the first point, though, you know, 20 years ago the prevailing notion backed up by the research at the time was that students' socioeconomic background determined their educational outcomes and in turn l

[applause] >> for more information about wendy kopp and teach for america visit teach for america got org. you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> well, a new online enterprise just starting out called the washington independent review of books. david stewart is the president of this organization. what is your organization? >> it is a group of writers and editors and similarly minded people mostly in the d.c. area who are very dismayed by the shriveling of book reviews space and the standard media. a lot of book review sections have been folded, shrunk, and it is just harder to find information about what's going on in the world of books these days. coverage of the publishing industry has shrunk. we decided to do something ourselves. this is from the old judy garland rickie moon movies with a say let's put on a show. we decided we would create our own book review. about 70 of us have been engaged, and we just lost and had a great response. it has been a lot of fun and very gratifying. >> what kind of books will you be reviewing? >> a ride it rains. we are going

a real czar, and you got to start over, can you describe your perfect educational system, that wendy kopp czar can build? >> i think we would, first of all, very clear about the standards that we're trying to reach. like we would start with a very clear understanding of here's what we think at any given level. kids should be able to master. and we'd have to develop great assessments so that we can understand whether or not kids have mastered it. and then we would put an enormous amount into attracting, developing, tremendous teachers, tremendous school leaders, educators in general and then we would free them up to attain those results. >> would you have unions? >> i think if you had really well managed school systems and schools, you might not need them, right? isn't what they found in organizations and sectors where management does its job? >> i don't know. are you asking me. >> i thought you would bring a crime analogy or something. >> you wouldn't have unions in a perfect world? >> you wouldn't need them because you would have school principals and school district superintendents and