Transcripts For CSPAN2 Lance Izumi The Corrupt Classroom 20180210

And we are glad that they are here to do that for us. Lance has an incredible background. Not much experience with the military or think tanks or education and lance has all of them. Something notable that you might not of known is he is a speechwriter for gentleman here in california and does anyone remember the name george duke mason . He was also the writer for ed neese in the reagan administration. He has that and he is military experience and he is now the head policy person at tr i on the education track and delighted to welcome him back. [applause] thank you, erica, for that kind introduction and for welcoming back here to the Silicon Valley to the Biggest Group therapy session in the bay area and erica mentioned i started my career after law school and im a recovering lawyer so i started my career as a speechwriter and for those of you vaguely remember governor george i was the guy who gave the duke all that charisma. So i was a speechwriter for the governor and speechwriter for annis when he was attorney general of the United States and i also tell folks that behind every great man theres a little japanese guy at a keyboard. Im glad to hear from joel that the bar will be open because i always sound better and i hope all of you partake. I want to thank erica for reaching out to invite me back and i want to thank you joel for having me back. I like to thank all the volunteers out there who have helped staff this event. It takes a lot of effort of a lot of people to put these together and i have great admiration for organizations like yours provide this outlet where people can feel marginalized and isolated especially in an area like San Francisco bay area. Im going to be talking about education and i was heartened on the way into the hall today when i iran into erica and i were walking in and iran into a young man here and his father were coming here for the first time and this young man is just starting high school and junior in high school, right . Okay. Anyway, so this is his first time here and hes coming here in order to get ideas and to get some bolstering from being a Public School for the first time you were in private school and that is what i will be talking about today. What is that experience like ive written this book called the krupp classroom and sometimes its biased indoctrination, violence and social engineering to show why America Needs a School Choice. Let me give you some back in. Ive been with the Pacific Research institute, independent Research Things take in San Francisco and also is incremental where im based and pasadena. With the free market think taking focusing on california issues and [inaudible] our president and ceo has been talking about healthcare here and thats her big issue but i am the senior director of education of our center for education and the crack senior fellow in education studies at pacific reports. Ive been with them for the past 20 plus years. I cant believe that. And a lot of my time researching education in california ive focused on academic issues like test scores and how well schools are doing and some of you and some of you have come up to me before the event started and talk to me about the previous work and i wrote a book not as good as you think which looked at the underperformance of middleclass in more affluent schools here in california and a lot of people think that the only poor performance were experiencing is from the schools that are populated by kids from low income backgrounds and that certainly is not the case. For example, here in california most recently on the National Exam that most states assess if you look not at californias students as a whole but just at those students who are classified as not from poor or low income backgrounds, the nonpoor students let say on eighth grade mathematics defined 55 of nonpoor students feel to perform at the present level in mathematics. It was even worse in reading. For nonpoor students on the eighthgrade reading exam 57 , nearly six out of ten, nonpoor students in california failed to perform at the proficient level on reading. Theres a lot of academic underperformance going on in your own backyards basically. When i wrote that book more than ten years ago called not as good as you think a number of the schools i featured were schools here in the Silicon Valley and im sure that things have not changed since that time. The thing of it is and the reason i wrote this book called the corrupt classroom is that parents make decisions about where they want to send their child not just on test scores and how kids are doing in math or english or some of the other academic subjects but there are lots of of the reasons why parents may be dissatisfied with the education that their children are receiving, right . What are some of the things . Some of those things make up the chapters in my book. For example, lets take the issue that a lot of you are interested in politics. Right . All of us are interested in politics and we have often talked about liberal bias in society as a whole and certainly in america and American Culture but its the case that theres a liberal bias in the classroom and its not just on college campuses. You see a lot of news about a professor lecturing about something that is offensive to anybody who has the point of view of all of you but a lot of it is down in the k12 level as well and for example when i look at the list of examples in the book take for example the anti trump protest that were occurring here in the bay area in berkeley and San Francisco and Northern California like sacramento where i am from and who is the leader of these protests mr. Mark one of the key leaders of the protest is woman named yvette and some of you may recognize her name and she was on Tucker Carlson show last year, i believe and she is a middle School Teacher at Martin Luther king Public Middle School in berkeley and she is also one of the key leaders of the radical organization by any means necessary and shes been in the forefront these violent and destructive anti trump protest that have been occurring. In fact, she allegedly physically assaulted a man and an anti trump rally in sacramento in 2016 and that started a huge mealy that started with numerous people staffed. Eventually after going through a lot of videotape that event the Sacramento County district attorneys counted charged her with criminal charges based upon her involvement with this violent demonstration. But she said that the First Amendment and this is one of her excuses when people ask her about her activity is the First Amendment should not protect the speech with which she disagrees and that she labels speech. But if you think about that shes involved in violent activities and has this ideology that basically says that most of you should not have free speech rights because what you believe in and what do parents think about that must work even for a liberal bastian like berkeley parents think this is just beyond the pale. One berkeley parent said that her violent in your face message has no place in the classroom especially at a school named after an activist, Martin Luther king, who preached for social change through nonviolence. Its not just someplace like berkeley but here in Mountain View for example a history teacher was suspended after he lectured students on the parallels between donald trump and adolf hitler. Yup. Both trump and hitler supposed this teacher supposedly said wanted to make their countrys great again so. The thing of it is i also want to make clear that this type of trump arrangement that came to the fore in 2016 to the president ial campaign and certainly continued after the trump had been inaugurated as president of United States that this is not a phenomenon that is limited just to a place like the bay area or to california. Its all across the country in blue states, red states, purple states, for example, in carolina in english teacher made students compare speeches by trump and adolf hitler. In a secret audio recording one of her lessons by a student in her class the teacher can be heard saying the only people who are safe from donald trump are White Christian males. One of the parents of one of the kids in that North Carolina school said that her son felt this teacher was attacking anyone who liked trump or anyone whose parents like to. But another parent also said most conservative parents in that area dont want to fight the system because they know they will be shut it down. Sound familiar . You thought you were the only ones here in the bay area who had that feeling. Its like that across the country and this is in a state of North Carolina that went for donald trump. In texas a teacher another very red state in texas a teacher did a fake assassination of President Trump in class using a squirt gun as she yelled die, die, die at the projected image. A colorado teacher but President Trump face on a pinata and asked students to take a whack at it. One of the parents in the classroom said it so disturbing that this is happening in a School Setting and why divide people . Why do this . They are good questions. What is to be gained from encouraging students to take a whack at President Trump . In New Hampshire high School Teacher dressed up as donald trump and danced to a profane anti trump rap song. The New Hampshire parent asked its not even like this was a sociology teacher, this was a geometry teacher. [laughter] i dont know what equation that person is doing. [laughter] a new york teacher gives out a homework assignment with fill in the blank answers so with the correct answers are to complete the sentences were ones that disparaged President Trump. A new york parent said i dont think that is putting your personal feelings about politics into a six graders homework paper is proper and there were at least a thousand sentences that couldve been used besides disparaging our president. Absolutely true. Right customer but it is more than individual teachers and if you look at Teacher Unions here in San Francisco the San Francisco Teachers Union issued a lesson plan for all teachers in the district after President Trump selection that called trump a racist and sexist man who had a huge racist and sexist base so it wasnt them just attacking trump but them attacking all of, i assume all of you, but all the people who voted for him, as well. The lesson plan asked students to create a poster directed at Trump Supporters who are described as dehumanizing students. The lesson plan only included articles and reports and videos by leftwing sources and publications like producer director michael moore. So how are pro trump students most appeal when trump is characterized by teachers as racist, sexist and unjust. Theres no acknowledgment of the Chilling Effect that such policies have on free speech in general and specifically on the stability of students to make up their mind about candidates and policies. A lot of you know a republican activist in the bay area, [inaudible], the National Committeewoman from california and she calls this plan by the San Francisco Teachers Union and inappropriate began the that unfairly demonizes the campaign that donald trump the winner, iran but also the people who voted for him. But there is more to political and ideological bias than individual teachers and Teachers Unions who are talking about President Trump. It goes much deeper than all of that. The curriculum itself is often intentionally biased and onesided. If you look at californias history of social studies curriculum framework which is supposed to guide the teachings and instructions and classroom it conspicuously fails to mention for example the monumental atrocities committed by communism in the 20th century. Exactly how do they depict communist nations such as the soviet union in the section on the cold war the curriculum framework only says that the soviet union had a poor record of protecting human rights. [laughter] is that it . And never mention the fact that soviet union killed at least up to 20 Million People during its existence. And i was being ultraconservative there but yes, wait to you hear another statistics i will come up with within a second. The framework also says the cultural revolution and the great leap forward in communist china, which were two of the biggest mass murderers events in Human History, caused what not genocide but caused unrest in disorder. It is not mentioned these two programs alone killed up to 46 million ordinary Chinese People. One of the things i mentioned in the book is that if you look at what happened in countries like communist china during these programs you have unbelievable things occurring, evil, atrocities are occurring in for example, the great leap forward was the force imposition of communist agricultural policies on the Chinese People which resulted in the largest mass famine in Human History and it caused in the countryside parents to cannibalize their own children in order to survive him a trade their children between families in order to cannibalize them in order to survive. Unbelievable things that make you wince just reading the words on the page. And yet, we are told that this was a regime that simply caused unrest in the countryside. Not surprisingly the framework fails to mention that as a whole over the 20th century communism is responsible for at least up to 100 Million Deaths and yet none of that makes it into classroom in california. About the immensity or the evils that was communism, so for example millennials find out that for those people who have heard of him, one in four have a favorable opinion of Vladimir Lenin and even worse than that, more millennials believe more people died under the administration of george w. Bush then under joseph stalin. So, you know, whatever you went about the bush family, i mean, there is no concept of what Jean Kirkpatrick the investor of the United Nations during the Ronald Reagan demonstration said about the soviet union and communism and Ronald Reagan, her boss depicted communism as the evil empire. There is none of that that comes through. And what is the future for people who have that viewpoint . Turns out that only 25 of millennials according to polling data say that living in a democracy is essential. That should be scary that only according of millennials actually think democracy is essential for living in this country, so doesnt just stop at political bias. That would be shocking and enough to fill the entire book, but like they say on those tv commercials, but wait there is more. Theres also things that just, school safety, violence in the classroom. If you look at the latest federal statistics its absolutely shocking to see them out of violence taking place across America School campuses. According to these federal statistics, 65 of the Public Schools reported more than one incident of violence that translate to more than three quarters of a million crimes committed on our Public School campuses and its even worse than the grades. Nearly nine in 10 Public Middle Schools report there have been crimes of the violence committed on the campuses. Lets put some faces to these statistics. One of the things ive tried to do in this book is not only talk about the data its to tell the human story about behind the data like so say for example this little 9year old girl named manny turpin. She went to a Public Elementary School in alabama and she was unfortunately the victim of bullying and physical assault. She was assaulted by another student, which caused her to receive a concussion. She was bleeding all over her face. She had contusions and she was in bad shape. Of the school calls her mom and to pick lanny up, so the mom goes to the nerve Nurses Office and the nurse then tells lannys mom that oh of course when lannys mom asked how this happened at the nurse tells lannys mom that oh, she accidentally fell and hit her head. Now, lanny although she had a concussion and was bleeding and was able to pipe up and say no, mama, i told them this other girl jumped me, so of course lannys mom is extremely upset by this information and goes to the principle and asks the principal what will be done about the perpetrator of this crime and the principal allegedly says that we are going to suspend that students. Turns out they never did. So, you have the school, i mean, it was bad enough that lanny ended up receiving these severe physical injuries, but then the school tried to cover it up after that and is so lannys mom ends up taking her out of school and starts to homeschool her, but shes in an interview with the newspaper in alabama and said many other parents had the same experience at the school. Hers made the newspaper, but there are these others that didnt and thats the important point is that you might hear a terrible story like this, but its not an isolated anomaly. These sorts of things are happening all across the country in all states i will give you another example and this is particularly bad. Of bears a little girl in there is a little girl in South Carolina, africanamerican girl at a Public Middle School and she had been verbally and physically assaulted for two years supposedly for acting white. Now, her parents have sued the School District. About girl was an honor student, but according to the others was taunted as an oreo, white girl and a want to be white girl. Students through water in her face, beat her with a bottle and slammed her face with a backpack that broke her teeth. She was stopped on campus both in and out of the classroom and she things got so bad for this poor girl that she was forced to eat her lunch of the girls restroom toilet stall to avoid her tormentors. Again, all of this is bad enough , but what is just as bad is that School Officials did not seem. The girls parents reported that fully answers to school, district officials and School Board Members and they did little or nothing. I should mention that the girls father is a career u. S. Army soldier at a base in South Carolina, so here is this man who is putting his life on the line to protect all of our liberties and protect the liberties of those School Officials and what is he get in return . He allows these kids in school to assault and torment his daughter, to the point where shes in very bad shape. That is the kind of payments that we give back to a soldier . I mean, after reading this story in this lawsuit was filed just a few months ago. It reminded me of an episode anyone here watch that series on netflix called the crown. Its a really good series. Anyway, its a story about the royal family, Queen Elizabeth from when she gets ascends to the throne in the early 1950s through the rest of her life. Anyway, theres an episode in the crown that focuses on Prince Charles when he is sent away by the royal family to a school in scotland called court instead because thats where Prince Philip had gone to school he had a terrible experience there and according to the epilogue he refers to his experience there as hell on earth. You can only imagine that thats probably what this girl in South Carolina felt about her time at this middle school having to eat her lunch is in a toilet stall in order to feel safe from her attackers. In the face of this surging crime epidemic, what is being done . Well, you would think we would be getting tough on the people committing these crimes. Unfortunately, its the other direction. Under the Obama Administration the Education Department sent out a letter, a directive to schools saying that they should stop suspension policies that have a disparaging impact on minority students even if those policies were race neutral on its base. The suspension policy had no discomfort are in fact if more minorities were suspended in that policy had to be eliminated yet, if you look at the research and research thats been done by scholars at Florida State university, university of cincinnati and university of texas at dallas it shows that suspensions are best explained by previous student behavior, not by the race or the policies of that school. So, what has been the effect about policies that have been promoted by the Obama Administration and adopted by so Many School Districts with this anti suspension policy . You find out that discipline has broken down across the country and if so you find that large majority of teachers in places like santa anna in southern california, baton rouge, louisiana, denver colorado, jackson mississippi, syracuse, new york, peters all saying that the anti suspension policies that have been adopted by their districts have made their schools more violent to the point where they worry about their own safety. A parent in minnesota said when she complained that the school had not call police when her child was viciously kicked in the groin the principle shrugged and replied, that is your job. So, what is the impact of this chaos in our nations schools . Research by the university of california at davis up the highway here, i did my masters at uc davis and research by uc davis of university of pittsburgh shows that leaving just one disruptive student in the classroom negatively impacts the learning of all the rest of the class. Doesnt that sound like common sense . Think back to your days in school. If there was a disruptive School Student in your class what was the teacher doing . The teacher was focusing on that student and not teaching the rest of you, so those are precious minutes taken away from the learning process for the majority of the students and focusing, trying to calm down and do something about the disruptive students, but its not just student on student crime. One of the things i talk about in the book is also teacher on student crime. We have all heard about by now Harvey Weinstein and all of the things that came out about him. Lets me tell you about Mitchell Whitehurst, the Harvey Weinstein of Public Education. As the school year started in late summer 2017 an Investigative Reporter named Bethany Barnes of the oregonian newspaper broke the story about this Mitchell Whitehurst who is a portland Public Schools is acore Education Teacher who had been the subject of Sexual Harassment complaints by young female students and adult women stretching over decades and the complaints were just not lewd comments, but shocking weinstein like demands. According to the columbia journalism review this reporter, Bethany Barnes said to through old records and found unbelievably shocking accounts. In 2008, a former student came forward and revealed that in the early 1980s she and another funeral student were allegedly asked by whitehurst to perform oral sex. Whitehurst allegedly took the girls to his apartment and said he wanted to see them kiss. This former student its almost like you cant make this up this former student eventually becomes a substitute teacher and reported that instant again in 2013, but she found out that whitehurst taught at the school at which she substituted, so whitehurst continued to teach. Like weinstein, whitehurst allegedly preyed on those females who he put into power and balance situations. In 2001, he made a high School Student according to the report spent the year making unrelenting sexual advances on the girl took for instance, whitehurst allegedly talked about roses past saying you know why they are so great because of the zipper in the back. You just unzip them and we are on. Whitehurst also allegedly pulled up to rose in his sports car as she waited at a bus stop and allegedly said, you know rose, i really need a jazzy like girl like you in my life. Why dont you get in your crows eventually mustered the courage to report him getting a detailed firsthand account to the Portland School district, but there are no records that the lawyer that investigated ever bothered to talk to rose. No one from the state teacher licensing board ever contacted her even though the complaint was referred to the agency. The attorney for the School District did tell the licensing agents that rose could be confused and that whitehurst was still fit to teach. Whitehurst went unpunished by 2013, the reporter, barnes, said dozens of eight grade girls boycotted whitehurst classes and according to interviews of those girls they often hit in the bathroom to avoid him or were shoes unfit for jim so they could sit out of class and one student said most girls are scared and shaking when they enter pe. What does the portland Public Schools do about whitehurst . Nothing are just as Harvey Weinstein sex was [inaudible] for the past 30 years there been rumblings about coach whitehurst and his out over friendliness with female students and staff and she even worried that im extrema concerned about his conduct becoming a pen a State University scandal referring to the coach sandusky that joe like hollywood the portland Public Schools ignored the complaints of the victim and according to Barnes School and district officials were repeatedly protecting whitehurst and dismiss complaints from the girls. Records and interviews show the system protected whitehurst not the children that district officials including top lawyers, to Human Resource directors and at least three principles downplayed complaints from the students and staff with as isolated instances, rumors on misunderstanding. Of the Teachers Union has been silent on whitehurst. Despite all of these botched investigations, provisions in the Teacher Union contract in portland actually protects whitehurst from being revealed. Eventually, whitehurst was forced to surrender his teaching license, but by . Not because of these complaints from all of these women overall of these many many years, but because he acted inappropriately and mistreated a male colleagues but, whitehurst is far from an anomaly. In the year 2014 alone, a study came out showing that teachers in the school staff reportedly committed nearly 800 sex crimes against students and thats just the two that the iceberg because remember that whitehurst was protected for years his School District and did not become part of any of those types of statistics, so how many of those sorts of things are courage threat our Education System that are never reported and get those victims like rose and others never get there fair hearing . Theres never eight need to movement for them like thats going on in hollywood. No one is wearing black clothing to mark their suffering like was done by hollywood at the golden globe awards. Its not as if School Districts arent aware that these kind of things are occurring, i mean, in fact los angeles and new york city both maintain socalled rubber rooms to hold teachers and other school staff who have committed various offenses offensives and are basically paid to do nothing to sit in these and in those cities across about 15 million a year. I have a whole chapter devoted to you think thats a waste of money, read my chapter on fiscal mismanagement in the School Districts. I have lots of examples. Take los angeles School District which is actually facing bankruptcy, surprise surprise. Why . Will, because of things such as in a couple years ago la unified impaneled a group of their own experts, hand chosen experts to go over there fiscal Management Practices and this panel came back and said if the district to continued into adhere to their spending habits that the district would face very dire financial future yet despite the warning within a few months of that recommendation from their own panel what did the school board do . Negotiated a very expensive contract with Service Employees International Union apartheid workers to give them full health care coverage. Unsurprisingly, this action was taken without any discussion at the school board now, its reported la unified could face a budget shortfall of more than 400 million in 2019. I mean, there is just some the other types of examples. Look at the book. What all of this shows is that who suffers . Who suffers from all of this . Who suffers from the politics in the classroom . Who suffers from the lack of safety . The children that are entrusted to the school. Who suffers from the fiscal mismanagement cracks in elegant unified for example, one of the outcomes of their fiscal mismanagement is cutting back on services to kids in the classroom. About people who suffer are the children. They are the people for whom the system is supposedly established in the first place to serve and get their the ones who are not prioritized whether its in investigating this behavior, whether its in deciding where scarce resources should be put or in deciding what is suitable instruction the classroom. The kids are always the second priority work so, the bottom line is that if parents and children are stuck in a politically biased Public School , stuck it in Unsafe School or stuck in a fiscally mismanaged school or socially engineered school that undermines their values, then they need an exit tool so that they will have a choice in the school and the type of education that is provided to their children. All of these reasons have nothing to do directly with test scores and academics. These are all about issues that involve values, culture, all of those things that we hear on some of our favorite radio shows and yet thats whats happening in the classroom. Those are reason enough for parents to have that choice and to be able to leave a school that is undermining them as parents, undermining their values, undermining their childrens future as thinking adults. So, whether its the choice for Charter School or Education Savings Account in nevada and arizona has implemented a tax credit for private School Tuition or some other type of School Choice mechanism, parents have had the ability to access the type of education at best suits the needs of home their own children. [applause]. Your children are not wards of the state. Your children are your children and you should have the liberty to be able to choose the type of education that best suits their needs. You shouldnt have some faceless bureaucrats at some District Office or in some anonymous Estate Agency in sacramento or in washington telling you about how to educate your child and how best to do that. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why i wrote this book and i hope afterwards you take advantage of all of the stack of books there and we ask for a 10 donation for them and you can also get them if you want to get them for your friends, the the corrupt classroom is available on amazon. Com and i will say our book has had a huge notice across the country. I was happy to be able to have a private meeting with secretary betsy devos to present a copy of the book. [applause]. One of the things i dont think erica mentioned in her introduction of me is that i was very honored in 2016 to serve as a member of President Trumps Transition Agency action team on education policy. [applause]. I was one of seven people in the country to serve on that team and i was pleased to say that the National Headquarters viewed our team mass one of the model teens in the transition, so i think that all of you are such an important part of taking back our country and even in that area like the bay area, look at what happened with President Trump. No impact he could have a chance and here he is now president of the United States, so i went to thank you all for your activism, your dedication to the principles of freedom and liberty and for your support of this organization and all of the great speakers who you have brought here through the years and will continue to bring to educate all of yourselves and your neighbors, so thank you very much. [applause]. Thank you very much. At the information is depressing, but we have to hear it anyway. The ushers are Walking Around and if you raise your hand you will get cards and then they will walk around and collect them. For those of us that our veterans of the form, there is no raffle tonight. Sorry. Everyone loves the raffle, but in the meantime while you are getting cards joel brought up a great question, its been about a year and would you say are there has there been any change with the tea devos at the helm of the Education Department yes, i think there is. I think even more will come down the pike. One of the initial things which i wrote about early on in the in a President Trumps tenure is that when he put out his budget recommendations, he wanted to eliminate a number of the programs, which research has shown are totally ineffective in achieving the purposes for which they were designed and so i think that even though those ended up not being passed by congress i think that shows you the type of things thats going to come down the pike. Of the president s early on in his presidency signed an executive order instructing secretary devos to form a task force to review administrative regulations put out by the Education Department and to cut those that had no sense to them, network counterproductive and that prevented innovation and learning in the classroom. So, i think he gave 300 day limits to that review and so that should be coming out soon. I should mention that in addition to my book, the corrupt classroom i have also because we can never stand still in the think tank business. I have also come out with a new publication called an American Education agenda which makes 15 recommendations for reforming education in america, five for the federal government and 10 for state local governments and so if youre interested in that application it is probably best for you to go on to our website at www. Pacific research. Org. That will be released i believe next week. Perfect segue. My first section was the love any information to see how schools have been changing and you talked about that a little bit. Another question was how did the movie and . Were there any consequences to laura and her job as a teacher regarding her actions in the trump riot . I actually checked on this before i came here because i knew i would mention her and i wanted to see if there were any developments. Now, she was charged last year on these rioting charges and i believe that its going to come to court actually i believe next week, actually. I believe the date i saw was january 18. Believe that in Sacramento County, so i think we will see how this all turns out very soon this is an interesting question. Its actually a year ago we had a speaker who i think you knew and we have vicki talking about School Choice and arizona and the questioner wants to know why our schools as bad in arizona as california if they have School Choice . Thats a good question. I think one of the things that we have to realize is a, methane School Choices a universal panacea for everything. You just look at the Charter School movement. California has about a thousand or so Charter Schools and they have different performances. Some of them follow pedagogys that are more successful than others and so thats one of the things that parents have to be aware. Of the other thing, though, is that i think for a choices system to if you look at the studies that have been done, the best studies, the one where you have looking at a group of students who what they call an Experimental Group who go into some kind of Choice Program and go to private or Charter Schools and then look at in Comparison Group of students remain in the public system, most of those a studies show that that students who end up going to the choice schools end up performing better so, i think thats an important thing to realize. Yes, there may be individuals where whether its public or charter that may not do as well, but if you look at the broad group of schools involved in the choice movement, you find that overall the students in those programs and him doing better and so i think thats important i think whats also important is that you find that brooke improvement in performance doesnt just go one way. What you find is that when faced with more competition to a Choice Program, for example, people in the public system feel that pressure and as you see they will potentially lose their clientele, their Customer Base and they have to up their game, so you also find the Public Schools and up trying to do a better job as a competition, which is really what competition is about. It depends on if they feel a big enough pressure by you losing enough students. If you have just a Boutique Program that only pulls from a few students its a pin prick so therefore the district may not feel as though may need to change, but they are in danger of losing large groups of students because the program is more universal, for example, then that is one of the things that gives a real push for the districts in the schools to improve their performance. Here is a term i have not heard in a while and understanding we still have a lot of cards to go through could you please discuss common core back. Well, one of my recommendations in my education agenda in the state and local area is to repeal and replace, core. [applause]. [applause]. I actually wrote a book back in 2012 about common core. There was a time when virtually no one outside of education insider circles had ever heard of common core. I wrote a book called obamas education takeover put out of new york and basically what it was was an analysis of why, core was not all its cracked up to be and not only from an academic point of view, but also from a control point of view, so one of the things i argued in that book and elsewhere was that in california one of the few things we actually got right was that under pete wilson we actually adopted a set of academic standards that were very good. They were so good they were rated rated by organizations in washington is one of the best in the country along with standards like in massachusetts, what happened when common core, which was the national set of education standards that had i was looking on with a lot of baggage that included unaligned set of curriculum and a line set of national tests, so we had this huge triangle, standard curriculum and testing that came with common core and when california decided to adopt, core and replace its previously really good state standards adopted under governor wilson what they got was an inferior group of standards which then led to an inferior curriculum and the aligned test. In fact, some of you may know a colleague of mine at the Hoover Institution named bill evers. A bill was also on the trump Education Action Team for education policy with me. He has just written a really eyeopening article on the huge failure of the common core testing system and thats really worth your while. Just came out within the last week or so, but i think what you find is that common core were weaker standards at least for california was concerned. Could impose a curriculum that was less rigorous than what we had under the old california standards. Algebra was required in eighth grade and under, courts required in ninthgrade. What happens when you only require in the ninthgrade . Well, you cant get to calculus by the time you are a senior in high school. Therefore, how will you be ready for college especially some of the more selective colleges if you cant get to calculus by the time youre in high school . I think it was an absolute travesty that we adopt a common core for both academic and political control reasons. Now, we are told by all kinds of people there is no way we can touch, courts, but there is a way. We can repeal it. We can adopt it then we can repeal it. [applause]. Theres nothing to stop california from saying we are going back to pre, core. President trump campaigned, one of the things he talked about during the campaign was that he was against common core. There are two themes to the president s campaign on education, against common core and for School Choice and so unfortunately there is not a whole lot that the federal government can do about common core because, core was adopted by state boards of education, state legislators and its up to the states to now do something about what they did and listen to all of you who have children or grandchildren who are now suffering under the pedagogys imposed upon them in, core and if we had more time i have a whole speech about, cork and maybe you can invite me back and i will give that. [applause]. The nest next question will ask you to be part psychologist. Which are thought odd studentteacher biases based on their political views. Someone said now in the ninthgrade in a Public School and i feel i cant speak out. Theres a series of questions that breaks my heart of parents or grandparents saying they are affected by this. What can they do ask your example said going to a teacher, principal, school board doesnt bring any fruit or maybe there is no answer, but can you discuss what people can do. Again, one of the reasons, one of the chief reasons i say, i mean, let me put it this wa, guess you can try and reform Education System. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. Take for example and i mentioned this in the book. I have a book on that sexualization of the classroom and here in cupertino, those of you who are from that town they know that there is a controversy thereabout the sex bed material that was debated there and a lot of parents that the materials were much too graphic for their middle school kids and do so eventually because they push hard enough and made a presence known at School Board Meetings etc. , i think, it was tied toto vote at the district tried to pull back on those materials. That is great, but what if they didnt . What was left for those parents . With a had to wait for the next School Board Election to elect people who had been supported their views . Thats great and i would recommend that, but their kids may be out of middle school by then and they would have to put up with this curriculum they didnt agree with and so i think that what people need is escape ticket that allows them to get their kids out immediately and if these School Board Members and district officials want to say we are not listening to you because we have got other agendas that are more important than yours even though you are the parents and your kids are the ones we are supposed to be educating then i think that parents need that opportunity to say sayonara. This one deals more with economic. Right now, for 60 of property taxes go to education. What can we do to make sure its spent appropriately, so outside of the bias i am sure there is waste. Any thoughts on that . Well, i think if you look at the way government operates, government even when it tries to do the right thing and often fails. So, take for example governor browns big achievement in k12 education is something called the local control funding formula and what this program is supposed to do is to reduce streams from sacramento on money coming out from School Districts , supposed to go to kids in need and one of the problems is that that money, you think okay thats great, lets red tape from sacramento and its going down to the School District, but its going down to the School District. It goes to the District Office. It doesnt go to the school. It doesnt go to your kid. Its not back packed on your. It goes to the district, which gets spent on what . Things like Teacher Union contracts and theres a part of local control funding formula thats called the local controlled accountability plan and do so the money that the districts receive are supposed to be accountable to all of you as parents, as members of the public, as taxpayers and the districts are supposed to implement activities that will make their use of that money more transparent and more and have all of you have an impact on how that money is spent. Have any of you heard about that . No . Surprise. In fact, you are probably with 100 of the rest of californians who have never heard about that would never attended a school board beneath to talk about that, never knew it was on a School District website, never knew any of that. So, even though, yes, there is this thing called local control accountability plan, there is no accountability because none of you who are supposed to be holding the district officials accountable on how they spend the money know it even exists. But, if you had, as i say in a hate to keep sounding like a broken record, but if you had an escape ticket and said hey, my kid is being lectured to by someone who has a political viewpoint who is impervious to a diverse dissection discussion or political views i will take my kid out and send them someplace else where they do respect that and that they will no. You know. You wont have to go to a School Board Meeting to talk about money from sacramento going to which school, which pot, which whatever and how that is affecting my kid in the classroom. We will make this the last question. Lance will be down at the book table afterwards and would like to meet you and have some books for you to read and hear about all of these thing takes. We he has to suck drive up to sacramento so we will get him on his way. Is there a School Choice measure on the ballot for california coming up . No, but certainly there are people who are interested in that. All i can to you at this time is to stay tuned. Ladies and gentlemen, lance lzumi. [applause]. Thank you very much. Appreciate it,. [applause]. For nearly 20 years in depth on book tv has featured the nations bestknown nonfiction writers live conversations about the books. At this year as a special project we are featuring bestselling fiction writers for our monthly program, indepth fiction edition. In march, book tvs in depth special fiction edition we will be live at the historical novelist who is the author of gods and generals as well as to the last man a story of world war i and in his most recent book the frozen hours on the korean war took a visit book tv. Org for more information. Heres a look at some authors recently featured on book tvs afterwards. Weekly Author Interview program. , george w. Bush speechwriter and atlantic columnist argued that Trump Administration is damaging democracy. Republican National Committee spokesperson reported on the grassroots populist movement in the us. Womens march cochair reflected on the 2017 march and whats ahead for the movement. In the coming weeks on afterwards authored jayna swanson will recount the assassination of Martin Luther king jr. Former Senate Staffer will share his thoughts on partisanship in the senate. This week and on afterwards, black lives matter cofounder will discuss the birth and growth of the movement. Let me make a clear because i think when people hear that they are like there goes the crazy leftists again and im actually saying i won a world where people are held accountable. I want a world where people feel safe and if we look at prisons and if we look at police, are people actually held accountable no, they are not hurt if i talk to people who are victims of crime, my family has been a victim of crime and there is sort of idea of the victim of crime, white family that lives in suburbia. Victims of crime is also black people in poor neighborhoods and ask them if they felt like they had accountability when someone was sent off to jail or prison and they will say no that didnt feel like accountability. I still dont have a job. There are still crime in my neighborhood. I still dont feel safe. They are dealing with criminals and their community quite often when the police show up things get really bad. Exactly. The other pieces that we have spent the last 40 to 50 years completely investing in police and completely investing in prisons and not investing in other things like housing. Healthy food. People having access to Public Education, adequate Public Education and we have seen the impact of that, so imagine if we flipped it. Imagine if we took half of the Police Budget, a portion of the Police Budget and put that into social programming. What can we do for human beings . Afterwards airs on book tv every saturday at 10 00 p. M. Eastern and sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern and pacific. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [applause]