Guest it is a think tank located in washington, d. C. We also do work in the state of ohio. Host what is your goal . Track everything happening in education policy and reform. We are big fans of public Charter Schools and other forms of school choice. We believe in holding all schools accountable for results, especially those funded by the public. Schools accountable for results, especially those funded by the public. We are engaged in trying to improve our School System. Host you wrote in the wall street journal piece, it is not that her rural areas have become more equal, it is that other areas have become markedly less so. Income inequality is virtually in Rural Counties and metropolitan ones. As the middle class shrinks, big cities are increasingly divided between a highly educated uppermiddleclass, and a low wage poorly educated Service Sector. What does it mean, a metropolitan phenomenon . Hearinge have all been about income inequality. It likewe talk about its happening everywhere, but the big change has been in these big metro areas. Places like new york, washington, d. C. It is not happening in the same way out there in smaller metro areas or small towns and rural areas. I was surprised to learn that back in the 1970s, the rural were the most unequal. It makes sense if you look at those economies back then. One guy owned the coal mine mower had a huge farm, that guy was super rich and everybody else was poor. That creates this inequality. The big metroy, areas had a big middleclass. Helped their to be lesson khamenei quality. There was more less income inequality. Helped their to be lesson khamenei quality. For people in my world, those of us that live [no audio] [no audio] we need to make sure we are targeting solutions to a Given Community like with the response to the pandemic. One size does not fit all because it is playing out differently in different parts of the country. It means metropolitan areas should be the ones focused on solving this problem and shouldering the cost. For example, if people want to support raising the minimum wage to help improve the earnings of the lowwage folks who generally have just a high school degree, you do not want to do that across the country. You might want to do it in a targeted metro area. Likewise with other ways to support and bring up the wages of the people at the bottom. If you try to do it all over the country, you will end up hurting places wherend in the cost of living is a lot less. If host you have lowwage workers providing services and not and you lot of money, have nothing in between when you do not have manufacturing like we used to in this country. Guest it does make sense in metro areas for young people to get a fouryear degree. For Service Sector workers, the folks that will not get higher education, i think it is fair, and i say this as a conservative, it is still fair to say, how can we make sure we support their wages so they are to provide a decent living for their family. I think the other big issue is the housing cost in big, metro areas. It is just ridiculous how much rent costs or buying a home. There is talk that because of the pandemic, maybe more people will decide they do not want to live in the big metro areas, including higher educated, higher paid folks. They might go elsewhere. That might bring down some of the housing costs. That could be a positive benefit of this terrible experience we are living through. Host how does this relate to at theon and your work Fordham Institute . Majorssome colleges and do it further when it comes to pay. Now we know that geography matters. It really matters where you live. In smallererica towns and smaller metro areas, now that they can see that their young people can do pretty well even if they do not get the four year college degree, even if they get a trade credential, that should tell us that we should make sure high schools have robust options for young people, including going for career Technical Education options. In other words, make sure it is not just college prep for everybody with the traditional courses and four years of english, math, history, and science. By the 10th or 11th grade, if young people want to start learning a trade, then there are those options for them. We used to have more of a vocational and technical approach in high schools. We dismantled it for the most part. Now, very few young people in this country, like 2 or 3 of d ang people, spen serious amount of high School Getting ready for technical careers. I think we need to flip that, especially outside metro areas where there are still good pathways to the middle class through technical careers. We should help young people get started on them while they are still in high school. Host lets hear what our viewers have to say. Todd, independent. Caller thank you. Im glad you are an education expert. I have one question and another,. And another comment. Putting they kept putting my son out of school and putting him in the counselors chambers. They startednths, using social services. Is it legal for him to go out of the classroom to a counselor redundantly . Teachers in my community in North Carolina asked for a big raise a couple of years ago from a republican representative. He gave it to them. They make a livable wage. What they were asking for his double or four times what minimum wage is. What is a High School Graduate supposed to do when they are getting offers to do manual labor . I quit school. Icould retire right now after get this kid out of high school, i will. Thank you. All, it depends on the state in terms of the rules around discipline or other issues with kids leaving the classroom. There has been a push lately to keep everybody in the classroom. It does sound like a strange situation. I think the important with youngn to have people is, what do you want to do when you grow up . Where do you want to live . And have conversations about education. We have this assumption everybody should go to college. And what we have happening is about half of the kids who go to college end up dropping out without any degree and nothing but debt. That is a terrible situation. I think we need to have better conversations. It is usually a good investment to get some secondary education. But depending on the Young Persons interest, it may be a oneyear program for a trade credential might be a better fit than trying to go to a fouryear program they do not have their heart in and then they drop out and are worse off. Will go next to brian in illinois, a republican. Good morning. Caller good morning. It has been my working experience, and i am a member of a labor union, and im really an independent. Anyway, we look at the historic trend in the american economy. Businessmen have always used immigrants to hold down wages. When i hear these arguments about bringing up the standard of living and wages for average working people, they always the effect of Mass Immigration into our country and how employers will always find someone who will do the job cheaper. The number one game in business is to cut cost and maximize profits. How are you going to bring up joses wages when you have and hector sneaking in the country and everybody turns a blind eye to them being here and they will do the job for 10 an hour . You have to control immigration. That is what drives me crazy about the democrats. They say they are not for open borders. But you look at all of their policies, just let them stay, that is what drives down wages. Inhave an oversupply labor our country and we have an ethical businessmen looking to cut wages. That is why our wages are falling, plus globalization. Address how we do not control immigration. Oni am not an expert immigration. I understand there are some good studies that show for the lowest income workers, immigration has held down wages to some degree. My understanding is it is not a huge amount, but it is real. We will get to see in coming years how it plays out now that immigration has been reduced dramatically. Have an experiment to see how that goes down. As a country, our birth rate is down. We will be having a shortage of workers longterm. We will see if that helps to raise the wages of people who do not have high skills or mental skills middle skills. It is a legitimate issue. Caller why are people paid by education instead of work . Employers should pay you according to your work, not your education. Guest i think that is a great point. I think there is a problem, especially with employers that require for your College Degrees for jobs that do not need th at level. Employers use it as a shortcut, they are lazy. They say if i know someone has made it through college, they got in and persisted. That shows me maybe they have some perseverance, so i like that. To try tobeen a push get companies to ask themselves if there are specific skills. In need a certain Knowledge Information Technology or you need to be able to write or read at a certain level or do math at a certain level. They need to be specific about the skill and be willing to acknowledge there will be people with a lot of talent who may not have gotten the degree but can do the job quite well. I think that is a great point and will help quite a bit. Host peter in new york, a republican. Caller this is a very complicated subject. Interject a few things that you could comment on. Outsourcing. Outsourcing of American Manufacturing and jobs out of the country is one big factor here. The demolition of unions. Unions have diminished over the which gavely middleclass people bargaining power. That the cost of education has gone up exponentially. A lot of students coming out of school have this huge amount of debt on their shoulders. Another factor is immigration. Back in the 1970s is when immigration started to pick up into this country after the second world war. After the second world war, immigration had been diminished. Since 2000, they doubled the amount of legal immigrants to one million a year plus all of the illegal immigration has also exponentially put pressure on lowwage jobs. Think the solution is to raise the minimum wage, and that will cause the quality. Toublicans say no, we have cut down on immigration because an influx of cheap labor is what is keeping the middle class down. I would like you to comment on some of those things. Thank you. Guest i think all of these factors are combining to put pressure on the middle class. I dont think there is any doubt about that. In education, we have to think about what this means for the kind of education we are providing to young people especially in high school. To have ae need variety of pathways into the middle class. College is one pathway, but it is not the only pathway. That is Something Really important. Im glad you brought up the cost of higher education. It is true that College Costs are through the roof. That has been a huge change in the last generation. I think there are still shocked when they see the cost and they remember what they might have paid with they went through. That is a big issue. If you are going to move to new york city or washington, d. C. , evenon valley, most likely if you take out big loans for a college degree, that will pay off eventually because you will get paid such a high salary in those places. But if you want to live where you grew up in a small town or more rural area, it may be hard an pay off a big college londo because you are not likely to get paid as much in those parts of the country. That should be a factor as something we talk to young people about. Jay, go ahead. Caller excited to hear about your policy to reinstitute vocational training, if i understand it correctly. Have you done a study of how much it would cost . How many billions of dollars that would cost for nationwide implementation . Thank you very much. Guest great point and great question. I have not seen an estimate on that, but it is a great question that we should figure out. It can be expensive. You want young people to actually be able to get trained on the latest equipment. That can be expensive. I think some of the best programs do not try to recreate it at the high school level. They try to get High School Kids to spend time at the technical and Community Colleges and in the workplace. This is how other countries, especially in europe, do it so effectively. You will see 16yearolds or 17yearolds at businesses. Not just technical. It will be at banks and Financial Institutions throughout the economy. Spending time with adults learning on the job. That has been proven to be the most effective way. We have a hard time in this country making that happen. Teenagers are ready to do Something Real and learn and make money. We should make that happen. It will require getting employers involved as well. Sometimes, employers complained about the lack of talent coming out of the High School System understandably, but they may need to put some skin in the game as well, including money to do training themselves. Host we will go to philadelphia. Anhard is watching there, independent. Good morning. Caller what studies could you point me to that look at early black childrens education in urban areas that backs up the point youre making . That the Skills Development is behind. You seem to be focused on high school and moving into Junior College or whatever. But if the skills are not implemented among black children at the Primary School age, they never will be able to accomplish that as adults. Even if this happens, are you pointing to migration because of where employment would be like only placeeas is the where what people would be able to get the kinds of jobs you are talking about, unless you are talking about distant working in the pandemic . I would like to know if there is a study. A question about black Skills Development at an early age, being able to do that. And the question of migration of black people out of urban areas into rural areas. Guest let me take the second one first. The question on migration. I am not an expert. But i think it is an interesting question. I think it is clear right now that life is tougher if you are doing those kinds of jobs in big metro areas where housing costs are so high and other costs of living. Weve talked a lot since the 20 alexion about the men and women who have been forgotten in Rural America sissy 2016 election about the men and women who have been forgotten in Rural America. I think it is fair to say that my roommate the minimum wage workers in metro areas have it the toughest. Does that mean people should be moving out of the big cities . I dont know. Maybe in some cases, that makes sense. In terms of development of skills for African American kids, you our right are right. Our k12 system needs to do a better job. We were starting to make progress in the 1990s and 2000s in improving the achievement of African American kids, especially in fourth grade, especially in math. But those gains pretty much came to an end 10 years ago with the great recession. I was hopeful we were starting to see progress again. But this pandemic is not going to help. Ofould point to studies great urban Charter Schools getting dramatically better results. Look atme people Charter Schools in the cities, finding very significant positive results. We need to understand what those schools are doing. It is not rocket science. It is fairly traditional. It is the kind of urban Catholic Schools used to do long ago. High expectations, a fair dose of discipline, great curriculum and teachers, and believing in young people that they can do it. But we have to improve basic skills if young people are going to have a shot at doing this in high school. The career tech im talking about does take a high level of reading, writing, and math skills. If we are not getting that done in elementary and middle schools, we have a problem. Host keith in indiana, republican. Good morning. Caller i am all for bringing back Training Programs for younger kids. They need these programs. I am a brick mason. I am retired. They had these programs when i was really young. I learned how to do automotive trim, masonry, and you cannot find any kids today that can pickup the masonry trade because it takes 10 to 15 years to become good at what you do. And they need to get some of these younger kids that is in trouble. Instead of putting them in prisons and stuff, give them the choice to take the courses to get a trade where they can go anywhere in the United States and work. Host mr. Petrilli . Great point guest great point. Trades are still a great option. That is something we have to get back to. Those are the pathways to. Iddleclass jobs host your question or comment . Caller im following what i have been hearing the last couple of speakers. They gave you an afterschool job that gave you self respect and responsibility. They could not find workers. I think caterpillar up north went into the schools and higher these young people and put them into the factories, and they learned from the ground up. They worked through high school. When they graduated, they had a job if they wanted it and they had more education if they wanted it. Government would give companies a grant. They give them a grant for everything else. They can help pay for this if necessary. This would give young people more selfrespect they need for themselves and it would take a burden off of the parents financially. Petrilli. Head, mr. Guest absolutely we need more of that. Even the oldfashioned summer jobs and afterschool jobs, there has been a huge decline in the number of teenagers working as we used to have back in the day. It tends to be the more affluent kids more likely to get those jobs because maybe they live in neighborhoods where they are doing lifeguarding at the local pool or things like that. A lot of kids growing up in poverty or workingclass neighborhoods, it is hard to get those jobs. There is more competition for lowwage jobs. They are not getting that valuable opportunity to learn what it is like to work when you are 16 even if you want to. We have a lot to do on all of these fronts. Young people are eager. They want to make money and learn skills. Host in florida, republican. Caller i wonder if you have been able to study successful systems like in miamidade under our superintendent where the fourthlargest public School System in the nation is kicking butt and taking on the philosophy of one size fits none where we are diverse within the public sector. I wonder if you have been able to study that success and any thoughts you have on that. Bigt when it comes to urban School Systems, generally it is hard to find good news. But miamidade is one of those places that has been impressive. You look at student achievement, the amount of options they provide, it is a really great place to go to school. Superintendent has been a long time and deserves a ton of credit. I think it helps they are in florida where for 20 years there has been smart reforms started with jeb bush that carries through today. I think it is inspiring. As hard as it is to improve schools, it is possible. It does take consistent leadership and a willingness to rethink how we have done things. Absolutely. Happeningd things are there. Host for viewers who want to it, go to theut website for the institute. At noon, live coverage of a hearing on the impact of budget cuts due to covid19 on public education. Later, the chair of the willessional black caucus discuss proposed legislation to address Police Violence and al