Are wrong about what happens in college. Better alternatives, its good to have money in the bank. Your kid decides they dont want to go to college who want to start a business its nice to get the kids money and let them use it to start their business instead of paying for them to binge drink or something. In terms of how much, there are a lot of people in the audience with badges that say they are in Capital Management or Something Like that and they could probably advise you better. My own portfolio suggests im not a good source of Investment Advice and should not be listened to. The one piece of advice i would give is i would probably save money outside of the 529 account and the reason for that is the 529 account you get a bandage or soprano in taxes but it has to be spent on college. With the amount of change going on that might tie you up. Entirely possible that if lots of people wanted to do something other than college the law may may change in you will be able to user for Something Else that you are taking a chance on whether Congress Acts rationally to help people. Im not good with that good with Investment Advice but im good enough to say not to do that. You mentioned that helen smith is here, also blogs under the name dr. To say frantic psychologists and after you go to his blog you should go to hers. Yes, next. I teach at emory and one thing we are having more and more is asian students from as asia, and pay full rides. I dont know how common that is another schools but i wonder if thats going to be, to bail schools schools out for a while . My own sector of the academy which is Legal Education that bubble is bursting much more rapidly. It has hit us first for a number of reasons. One is there has been a general decay in the legal job market and another is that people still see a graduate degree as more discretionary than an undergraduate degree. There are just a lot of Horror Stories of people who have gone to law school and cant get jobs. You can read about them on law blogs. The response of law schools is to create new programs designed to attract foreigners with money to bail us out. My guess is that works to some degree. Onomic calculus for american staying in america. How that will be churned out no better promise you will see a lot of schools trying to attract foreigners with money to make up for the loss and my prediction is if you are stanford that works really well and if you are some school no one has heard of it does not work at all. How about somebody in the back. Yes. I am an academic lifer, spent 40 years in it. The iq test is readily available. Just take your s. A. T. Score and take off the zero and its an accurate estimation of your iq and i suspect a lot of employers know that but would not dare say it. My question is the Collateral Damage getting of getting rid of all of these parasites universities every academic knows of there. The deans about reach a multicultural studies and things like that. We are talking about thousands of people, massive unemployment. What do you do . What is the social cost of suddenly on employing hundreds of thousands of people who have these very cushy jobs that are essentially parasitic . I think it was eric hoffer to said theres nothing more dangerous for society than a multitude of scribes running the countryside seeking employment. You may be right. I think it will be gradual rather than sudden but i could be wrong about that. I sent the manuscript and jan and i started following the news in following the nicynta kept saying stuff i was predicting the book already happening. It was like slow down, slow down, wait until the book comes out. There are a lot of people in universities who are likely to be redundant as they say and let go as they cut back. They will have to find Something Else to do. I guess welcome to the world that everybody else in america lives in. I do have a passage in the conclusion of the book from arthur allen laughed as the greatest legal writer who ever lived. Read his memorandum and the stanford law review but what he said in this passage i quote which is the second best passage is that you now change can be pretty frightening especially for those of us doing all right as it is and a lot of wives get lashed to pieces as the distribution of curved flails around desperately seeking a new equilibrium. Thats absolutely true. Its called creative destruction. There is great stuff but theres also the structure and theres no question just like the changes in the auto answer the computer industry are pretty much any other industry can name particularly journalism have left a lot of people unemployed or worse employed in i used to be and with less. That is going to happen too that was going to happen as i said like most change probably would be worse for the producers people like me and better for consumers who will have lower costs and more choices in the end. That is how Airline Deregulation worked, bad for airline captains, good for Airline Passengers might think that is what we will see as well. Thank you very much for your comments. One of the areas that interest me a great deal is the whole question of what happens to the humanities . Obviously the orientation you see in Higher Education is toward when you talk about trinity colleges i think youre quite right. What happens to our civilization when we dont read plato or aristotle or dont have the foggiest idea who they are and did not read shakespeare and did not read the bible. What happens under those circumstances . The dumbing down of the academy, what happens when in fact there is an academy that does not emphasize the humanities at all . Well in some sense that is what we have now which is to say that i dont know what percentage of College Students read plato but its relatively small. One broader point, one direction and a discussion about Higher Education often takes is people who say you know everybody should just study engineering. Quit wasting your time with the humanities and be an engineer. They produce value. There are a few problems with that and i want to make very clear im not not somebody has a separate and im not somebody as opposed to traditional liberal Arts Education at all. As a matter of fact people who actually read and think and write are in surprisingly short supply. I have a friend who has a business and she heard a couple of people. Her job was to write catalog and amazon product descriptions. They came out with a distinguished Marketing Program and they could not write a coherent paragraph. She was like having to rewrite them. There is a lot of demand for people who can actually read and think and write. Its significantly unmet demand right now. Its not that there is no role for liberal arts. I think when people do get on their high horse about engineering but think the perception is engineering has remained a rigorous subject. If you go to school in Industrial Engineering or Mechanical Engineering you come out knowing a largely agreed upon body of stuff and its important stuff for when he do it works. I think there is not not the sense anymore that when you get a liberal Arts Education that you do something similar. I think thats because largely people are right. There has been a substantial reduction rigor in the academy and there are people in this room of written books about this very subject. I got to go into great length but if you want liberal arts to survive it nonetheless has to be a valued proposition. People have to believe that it has to be true that if a major in us and read plato when they get out they will have skills that will get the job. I think that would be true but one question is so high that you are investing even if its not in Student Loans even if you take it out of the trust fund is still something in the six figures for College Education expecting an 18yearold to do that with no payoff doesnt make any more sense than asking an 18 euro to buy a furry. While a furry improve your life . Guest , it would improve mine. [laughter] but its a big expensive item. If a dozen papers of the top expense item that an 18yearold ought to have and thats doubly or tripoli so if its on borrowed money. Right here, stanley. If your predictions have proven correct are we going to see large amounts of corporations Merrill Lynch citibank looking to hire Smart High School kids and training them and giving up College Degrees entirely . You know, you might. The reason dont see more of this and the economics of it if you hire someone to train them and they leave you dont recoup your investment. In the old days we had apprenticeships that made sure they didnt leave until they had the investment. Involuntary servitude or indentured servitude now but so thats an issue but i dont think its unbeatable. I think there is a growing interest. One of the places pushing certifications for example is the Manufacturing Industry which has a consortium of people pushing stackable certificates to show people have skills. I think you will see more of that. Whether rocha to the point where you have substantially displacing College Degrees i would like to see that because i think it would be good. Mcdonalds has hamburg university. If you go there you learn a lot. Thanks very much. [applause] this is a pattern of abuse come up pattern of behavior that and does not give us any confidence that this agency is being impartial. I dont believe you. This is incredible. I have a long career this is the first time anybody has said you dont believe me. I am willing to stand on our record and remind you of was not buried in 27 pages most of that when asked about the custodians. Being forthcoming is still a say in the you know, what. Let him answer the question. I did not answer asking my question is. I control the time. You are disrupting the hearing. I am not yielding the time i control the time. Here is forthcoming if we are investigating criminal wrongdoing targeting people based on political beliefs and the emails in question are lost because of a hard drive crash that is a recoverable that many question and you dont tell us about it until we ask it . That is not forthcoming. I yield back the balance of my time. That is not true. Did job tillman has yielded back chicago in may. We are going to go ahead and t were going to get started. I wanted to welcome you to frances parkers schoolhouse and also the Department Chair for the upper school if you are new to the building think you for coming to our finally event of this spring a series that welcomes anyone to some great defense to bring programs from poets to this school Shakespeare Team part of what makes this a special place the seed to breaking the outside in and i will mention my friend who has come to read from and talk with us about his new book. Sam is a good guide to in the least one case helped me do truce to light in his education writing. And to tell our story to our history teacher to set the record straight. But mr. Olson headed back an exam where we had to explain the of the dresden bombing worked. The fire attacks. The thing is i dont remember all lot about that class but i remember this. We sat next to each other in the second row. And i knew that i nailed the question about the dresden bombing. I got my paperback it was marked wrong the first question on the test. You know, how when the teachers flashes through and it is incorrect with the red felt tips but i had a right and i showed it to sam and he said it was right and i should tell mr. Olson. So i did and it was hard i remember my voice was shaking. But i was essentially telling him that he, the teacher, had gotten something wrong. It help to me because telling my story to mr. Olson started a conversation revealed my understanding and a deeper way them what i had written on the task. That is learning sometimes complicated clouded by a misconception maybe he was just tired of reading papers was conversation clarity beat clarity can be reached. And with his works the great strength is to see where there is something wrong is the power to make a right. And heralding what is already right in American Schools more than anybody else and then the parents to entrust their kids to them they believed how they shape the democracy itself. And his new book masterfully tells the story of washington d. C. To raise an important question about power and peril of School Choice. Our school is an important work because in it sam writes about ways the review essentials truths about learning and choice. But our schools shows his passion and precision about real people with realize. The matter what they say. Indeed in san so onwards his project is compelling. We must experience modern schooling as todays teachers and students and families do. Andrew must Pay Attention to democracy and joyce. Nothing could hit closer to the meyer kahane and what is missing abet the faces and experiences to spend there in the classrooms of all communities. He hopes to see the landscape to the gorgeously written study. And he is here to read this so please welcome to the podium my friend and classmate and colleague. Salmon . [applause] thanks teresa. High everybody. High everybody. I. The first of might have been introduced by a former highschool classmates. Some not surprisingly is safe to say that the nicest and most interesting introduction i have never had. Thank you so much for setting the stage and to all of you for coming. You obviously know i went to high school here for i am not from here i grew up in New Hampshire is not fully coming home but it is a home to me because it is exciting as the boat goes and a visit different parts of the country to be in a room to be introduced by a former classmate or former student from brooklyn is year teaching in chicago where there is friends and family on the front lines and those that are still is schoolhouse seneca alert school is of story in the life of touche schools and how they intersect one is a Charter School opening the doors for the first a Charter School opening the doors for the first time and the Neighborhood School that opened doors in 1924 in the nations capital. Is about more than that most of the issues are really the most pressing issues of the day nationally and with passionately felt quite hot local context. So it is a book about School Choice and testing and teacher evaluation and gentrification and the changing notion of community. Needless to say that is a lot to talk about in one book. Especially in a onehour. But we will try. So here is what i want to do , i want to share three sure readings from the book and to provide some specific context and give us a sense of what i think about those things win let your questions determine the rest of our time together. First adjustable context of d. C. To have an appeal because this issue of School Choice is the brave new world of modern American School reform. Just about every major American City there is some level of experimentation with this idea parker for started to think about this book three years ago when not coincidentally when real the sun so they have universal preschool. One thing that we noticed that smart motivated parents had absolutely no idea how to choose a school for their kids. And i thought that is interesting and a major problem if you try to unleash trying to make us decision in the best interest of their kids and therefore driving decisions if people understand why they choose a school of what they should be looking for then the house of cards come stumbling down. Socalled is a movement is actually only two cities since the country that have more schools enrolled in Charter Schools it is new orleans and detroit. You could probably understand so 44 percent of the kids are enrolled in Charter Schools but even in traditional Neighborhood Schools even those attend Neighborhood Schools. So what is happening at the time i set out to write the book is the great interest city migration all these family is ignorantly with great anxiety and hope in search of the community for their kids and i thought this is something we really need to understand more. With his Teacher Appreciation rate. So the First Reading is in short descriptions of to of educators in this the story about for teachers in the two principals in to a lesser extent some parents on the outside and without giving a more cautious tech context i want to introduce you to to the people i follow and see what you think. First is one of the teachers at the Neighborhood School. The title of the chapter is the first day. Wed the alarm clock went off in the morning without beeping sound because nothing else would rouse her, Rebecca Hofstadter a bet into the 70 minute routine she had honed after her previous two years bathroom teeth face and make up seven minutes. Six minutes to get dressed for minutes to find her keys and tear her lunch or as it has banal locally for political demonstrations malcolm x park. Four years earlier for bechtel is a seniors student at brown and michelle was the chancellor of the d. C. Schools. Of leibowitz sawdust cover she decided the nations capitals were issues start the career and the bullets believe d. C. Had a chance to show the rest of the country well as possible when they decided to set High Expectations everyone to ups will level of classrooms held the kiddos most poorly served in the past by race refusing to do like they had done before. Emplaced added Elementary School named after the founder of the Naval Academy bancroft. Is above the beginning six weeks into her first year she was switched from first to third grade to replace a teacher who had a nervous breakdown of renner children than she had stable years to hone her kraft and then she thought she would get the praise she received but then the only place she had never worked she felt increasingly certain this year would be her last. She entered the gymnasium to look for her teacher there were known as the to rebecca is and with those 63rd graders with that colorful mural depicting columbuss arrival to room 121. Children sat in clumps across the gym floor waiting to be escorted to their homes parents received lastminute registration of interpreters move back and forth to make sure they understood what was required near the gym door she approached avoid the shooter the teachers complain about last year. Houri doing harvey . To do have a great summer . He shrugged with his head down. Nearby. Friends . Each performing her own distinct pirouette and this is the principle of the Charter School. The looking across the street at the hospital to select the alpha for her first day as a principal blue shirt and tan pants and sneakers in thought of the apartment from six street in Corpus Christi with the gunfire and the roaches. That is the first time she visited a friends house. Why dont we have that . How can i get that . Heard dad saw the change in her daughters face in the building anchor and resentment. There is a difference between a school dan being smart. Education as a bridge or a border. Choose for try as a child she often fished with her father. Wait. Wait and tells it to us learn to distinguish between the tide or a fish. One time she felt the tug her father watched. She tried to pull back within the force but daddy a can do this. Dont ever say that. Did dip to lower and lower and her father got behind her and screamed reel it in. The child strained as hard as she could handle this stage ray e. Merged the weavings wider than the robo to the father attended on to the floor before it could strike again reach for a pair of pliers to pull the stinger off and bellowed at his daughter to pull out the how can the second suicide of the boat down into the waters and father and daughter lay there and exhausted do breathing hard. She felt like crying and laughing. He was always getting her into situations like that. Then pushing her through them. That is what kept them alive as she wrestled her son from his dreams he was making sure i had it in me. It would not surprise me if you think that is not a book about education. And it may be selfevident but part of what became clear to me over the course that i spent in the schools and wasnt sure what form it would take but first of all, people are interested in other people. Not programs. So a book that explains their readers and writers workshop camby found somewhere else even though this talks about. But also what became really clear to me to watch the cultures of the schools unfold those that have experience working in successful organizations that always the main currency that defines a successful culture is language and relationship. The most effective schools or in firemans fireplaces where people know one another that means they dont just know what the tendencies are like in the classroom but her father meant everything to her to understand her is the relationship she had with her father in what he taught her about life that i bring this up because looking at case through 12th School Reform is so contentious and a two dimensional. It is the landscape of the righteous and the day and. There are some malevolent folks out there and those that theyre doing heroic work that is unrecognized. For the rest of us it is more complicated than merely determining that because rebecca moved to washington d. C. And admired michelle that we shed either love or hate her based on the fact along. Because she left her long career to be the inaugural principle of a Charter School we should celebrate her s a hero or condemn her as part of the effort to privatize Public Education. It is more complicated than that and part of my hope and we need to begin to of a conversation about the ways school to raise as very and resolved issues around race and class and plays and democracy the way School Reform is supposed to a nation better approaches to teaching and learning. The first conversation we have to have is what is it that our schools should be more effective at doing . To have a rising tide that lifts all votes . From my perspective that is no. Not a conversation were having sufficiently broadly enough to impact the worked we desperately need to do on behalf of our communities. Reading number two. I think speaks specifically to the things that are happening in both washington d. C. And chicago. You will get a preview of what is coming knowing this is a chapter title building a house. Are we good . This is the very beginning of that chapter. Paul still a girl her family had owned she fantasized about becoming a psychologist. Most of the youth was spent outside the city in the family that lived elsewhere on her a courageous when she imagines herself working in a large office with the city roster of parents, the eight yearold added an extra twist as secret trap door to which she in the children would escape free from adult supervision. That is what would heal them and parents would never even need to know. Years later that honor the spirit as a College Student sheikh call this the issue of Cultural Development and by the way it is possible to design your own major. [laughter] em the way different children and cultures could experience things differently in school and she would work with troubled boys their girls and eventually founded her own high school. Reference to build something lasting always fall slightly short. When she learned is a challenge ever really great education is almost all motivation. Yet every school is she ever worked an even the when she built herself ended up stealing too much capacity. She had designed her own school as a counterweight to the heavily structured environment in which she first taught that the other extreme was problematic. It is this a result. The art of building a great school came to strike the right balance just like the art of building a great house. The first house that she built the one that burned to the ground of the night they moved into a four than three years to complete she was 22 in the next to nothing about constructconstruct ion she had only bill to dulcimer. She had healthy dose of carelessness so she dove in. Many months later she stood in front of the accomplishments of her life to learn by doing and cut down trees and by hand and welcome to friends and on the night she and her husband threw a party do celebrate should fellatio us and sharing your personal masterpiece but when she discovers she overlooked in the essential piece of the puzzle a single component of racing in the chimney. No one was hurt but the wood from the fire quickly spread and in a flash all they had worked for over those years did everything they had acquired over the course of their lives was. She was devastated and then decided to start again. Shes bales of straw for insulation and the earth plaster on the inside made of local clay and sand and the horsemen were. Fire resistant and sustainable and completely unique and 11 months later they moved and for good. But the second house i like to the balance between forethought and planning also innovation in the moment she explained. When you build something from scratch you must have the right balance. The same is true for schools everything you do is self created based on need. That is where the expertise comes in leaving room for spontaneity to recognize you cannot do everything on the fly. I was particularly struck by her in sight. She was a person working with the Charter School. She works for a National Network called expeditionary learning which is a remarkable network of schools formed at a partnership with harvard and Outward Bound that gives you a sense of what they are about. So its always been in advising schools to help them and said the principles of text a burning bet will we witnessed over the course of the first year that ended well i should say was the insanity was starting the school from scratch. Insane. It is exciting believes to remarkable stuff and the reason it is insane is you have to build everything on the fly. Much as recruiting families but what you take for granted like report cards, professional development calendars so this idea to build a house i should say the flip side in a time i spent in the Neighborhood School professional development was like a game of telephone. The principal was sent up power point slides and then it was presented to her faculty is hard to maintain meaning when passed down when people are not deciding what to use. So then what each sector most needs is the other strings so Charter Schools has transferor autonomy and innovation and have to reinvent everything you should not have to reinvent everything surely there is wisdom we can apply. Surely a better way to allocate. Surely there is a way to have a more sustainable path in the profession for thinking outside the box. So they needed vintages of scale. They dont need to wait until the seventh year when they reach full capacity to hire an art teacher. They have report cards and a scale is what the district schools make them swim in the same stuff. Some of this notion of building a house is almost exactly what we need because for me to figure out ways to build new models are new schools. And it doesnt work on concentrating on renovating the schools we have. Even those federal interested in raising and rebuilding. Chicago has declining and will live in the make new schools all over the place there is only one possible end. 100 schools in five years than 50 schools closing and Barack Obama High School . The only way you continue to populate those schools of you continue to close other schools. There is no other way to do the math in the city like chicago saw as the outsider i wonder to what extent is there a pro active conversation . Yes it is important to create space and yes we need to double down by renovating what we have been free dont just mean renovating the space but figuring out how people will go there. Strength. This is not happening in d. C. There but it is interesting to it has changed to see how much more relatively speaking will be in a york city tomorrow the climate around choice in new york is closer to chicago and washington d. C. Is to chicago. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and the insight has a little bit of wisdom i will share another reading then the rest to be determined by your questions. It is a bit later in the book you just need to know this is an excerpt about one of the two parents that i followed there were looking at Charter Schools and one of them was on it like attended 30 open house is knew exactly what she was looking for and got it. This woman was not so sure. So what you are about to hear with the enrollment open house after she died in somewhere spirit by the time karen received a postcard in the mail that heard daughter won a preschool see at the Charter School she had just about given up hope. Every other school drew her status so far after the akashi has not even attended an open house is offer a of a commission she now holds but she started to remember to be impressed by a Creative Minds international she found of handout with the image of two childrens faces is. With art and for the bridges and handson projects the Charter School isnt new school for children in washington d. C. To create an International Curriculum with an arts based activity to foster creativity and self motivation and social and Emotional Development as well as academic excellence. , can the school says it offers something of a doesnt exist . Then she read more an emphasis on the arts, the founding principle with the phd with a deeper understanding how children learn and in spite of herself as she started to feel the fortune of her winning number. She also had no other option the fact that tempered her enthusiasm the following week. This is the actual reality of School Choice is school chance. The most established Charter Schools are anything other than a true Lottery Ticket because most of the younger spots are taken by siblings and for those who want to play the game the was the sound great on paper and may actually become a great the yet dont exist in any real form. You buy low and hope the stock will jump. As she walked in the front door she saw other families coming into submit materials. The flier features the posters of the current tenant as the highschool moves across town. One set of parents from pearson. I dont like it he said moments after injuring at which point his bothered knelt down beside him and said this is not your school yet. He stared back blankly. What is it . One pear it handed over materializing gave the teacher a bear hug if you need any help getting ready let me know. That gives me goose bumps i think my cry. And then the principal was addressing prospective families how much can you maintain once the School Year Starts . She has 17 years of schooling left and allow her to be pushed too quickly into the academic focus. I know exactly what you mean i started the school at the same frustrations searching for my son several years ago that is why we want to make sure our kids are just as focused to address the social and emotional needs as on the academics. The other parents were nodding and affirmation. Are these future friends . Will she be spending time at their home . Should i believe with the principle is telling me . We left shortly thereafter and she thumbed through the enrollment packet. I get excited every time i learn more about the school. At the same time did you see how young they were . The rising expectations of the parents and increase understanding have outstripped the capacity of the teachers to deliver the goods. Some of that sounded like election speech but what about practice into a water to be part of the experiment . The more i think about it im not as concerned it is preschool by the time she gets to first grade they will work out the kinks. I go back and forth were my priorities are. I am okay with her switching schools but i cannot help but think down the line it is a leap of faith by suppose that is true anywhere she liked and unlocks her car glading we will still move out of the city just not right away. So the peace at the beginning the front chest piece is the code at the beginning of the book i just learned that. Now you know,. [laughter] the front just peace is from platos republic i never read it like i imagine most of you . In school may be but a show of hands. Who did . Of course. [laughter] pretty good but while i was doing this research there was a not been in the Washington Post that the author quoted that piqued my interest because they never before thought like you always talk about school . Of this made me realize that platos republic talked about i have to read this. So i did so for those of you that have not read it and playdoh and imagines that socrates his mentor is visiting athens which is the highest model of a Democratic Society in Human History and only lasted 250 years nobody has figured out how to sustain an experiment end democracy beyond the point were not right now. Saugerties happens to be visiting any he is hanging now with the other dudes and theyre talking about what the ideal city should be like. A major question is how were they to be reared and educated in how do we answer that and Everything Else that we do to consider and in what way does justice and injustice, to a city . In what way justice and injustice come into being in a city. That is right in what way can the Ongoing School experiment braying justice into the city whether chicago or washington d. C. . This is crazy so the way you bring it to win it comes to education is you have trays and children in a common pen where nobody knows whos kid is too because unless you do that parents will disproportionately lobby for their child potentially at the expense of everybody else. I share this observation someone thought it was a policy proposal. But it captures the attention when it comes to democracy between the meat and though we. We will not be raising our kids and a common pence a how was a possible to honor the desire of parents to forcefully advocate for their kid . With the Charter School movement one of the central rallying cries was my child, my choice. It sounds pretty good. Right . But also the notion of the we and founded to be institutions primarily responsible for insuring we participate in some sort of share and i would say a lot of use the Elementary Schools may be the only spot that bring diverse groups together. There is not a lot of public squares any more. So to me and we will decide together we have to figure out some sort of a way democracy doesnt require that all of us live in in a quality but it does require that we share substantially in a common life. Some of the question that we will not resolve in the queue is a part of the program is in what ways can ongoing efforts to have more high functioning Public Education systems honor both the me and the day we . Three and the reality is really is valued liberty more than equality. To meet whenever away School Choice takes it will be a failure that leads to our own demise unless we very intentionally and courageously and consistently confront core issues that are manifest it around race and class and place and access and the ongoing tension between democracy and capitalism, how close we really want to be to one another. And around the fact schools can do everything and really helping high functioning schools to foster different notions of community. Lead is worth exploring and in my mind were not even having that conversation. It is with the hope we can begin and i look forward to continue that conversation with you in a moment. Thank you very much. [applause] so in the time that we have left what questions or comments do you have . This makes me very depressed. Is this the middle or the beginning . Had you seen a bright spot . There are tons of rice spots. Every word i said is true. I am really lucky and my job i can visit and work with lots of schools all over the country Public Private charter you name it. Most schools there is a reason that schools are feeling the almost every parent loves their kids in school. Most schools are pretty good. Very few schools are truly great whether public or private republic charter and very few are truly horrible. Even though both extremes exist. Most are pretty good and fall along the continuum. I can give you lots of examples where people are doing powerful things but there is a couple of things that i believe our core design principles. Actually let me take a step back further. And all of us need to be more cognizant so were in the midst right now people talk about this generally with the huge shift in education and there is the paradigm shift and here is what i think it means and what it means to be in the last 100 years the levy including the zero people in the room i can almost guarantee everybody in this room in the general age has experienced schooling very similarly and i can sum it up this way. Everybody went to school where the assumption was with content knowledge but the job of the student was to adjust to the school. And i can guarantee them evanston was to adjust to our need. Our job was to fit in and have fun. That this is typical. What we are now in the midst of this session after. Of a shift. Content is no longer where we are going is the means by which we reached the end goal. They decide in understand his skills in how the san dispositions they need to distill because those is what will guide the young people through life. Not just college or a job but through life to make them good parents, neighbors, partners and democratic citizens. But now shifting to the assumption it is the job of the school to adjust to the needs of each student. Those are massive chefs and both are right and it is a lot harder to do that. The reason we should be discouraged we have a system of wind to the old way looking at content knowledge whether schools are successful or unsuccessful based on reading and math scores. Who does this . This is like the general manager of the council only recruit players that hit the stomach. [laughter] perhaps that was a bad analogy. So we have to pay more attention to policy that incentivizes teachers to shift by wheat by where we reached the end and will and the expectation is not that they will personalized instruction to every kid better equipped to do that well and are evaluated based on their ability that doesnt just mean cognitive but social and emotional and ethical and physical. And the good news for full circle and the revolution is under way. Walsh share my contact information. Email me and i can point you to tons of examples where folks are already doing that or they evaluate themselves whether they reach those habits where kids are learning in and out of the classroom and teachers are empowered to build high transparency cultures and where notions of community your strength and in where they have expanded. That we had a larger level how of focused as some of those have but the opportunity to increase the collective attention with those schools. And is that a catalyst . [laughter] i will my suggestion when metcalf has all figured out but it is a School District founded to fulfill the progressive philosophy of john do a. But in urban districts like Chicago Public schools are like the washington d. C. Public schools and it is harder because theres so much beyond the control of schools beyond expectation a district can singlehandedly over, over all of the issues. Leica hardcore top down, i dont think it is possible truly to build an environment to personalized instruction around the strength and needs of each student to not do that and a democratic environment. How you can possibly empower young people if adults still feel empowered. I helped to produce a 10 her video series about a school in boston called mission hill. That is a remarkable school. The idea was real hall attended the very few have attended a great school so we dont know what that looks like and it just lets you be a fly although wall to see what it is that they do and develop a clear sense of oneness it is that might be exported and tried elsewhere. But to be continued. What about the current breakdown . To cement education is that compartmentalization is a hindrance to developing the of life skills across different arenas like academic or social and emotional blow away the curriculum is broken down prohibits that from developing further . Good question. Yes and no and mostly yes. If we try to shift away from it is content knowledge is what will define our work you still need a subject to i teach math or history or high school or a middle school where Elementary School. Those that have made the shift there may be folks who have a particular expertise and theyre always should be but what they teach primarily is creativity and Critical Thinking and problem solving through math and poetry and social studies so a subtle but significant distinction and the fact we have been lots of places hardcore academic departments that kids go to school and 45 minutes installments how do you develop a more integrated sense of self deficit is it artificially demarcated into english and math and science . Expeditionary learning it is not a radical philosophy but we learn that by doing. One of the founders believe is what matters most is quality student work if you want to transform cultures start helping to produce quality work but in order to do it you cannot be racing through the curriculum. Said youre really serious there should only be two grades. A and not yet and still learning youre combining in realtime and ultimately you have to present what it is you have learned to a community who will evaluate your work. That is a model that what some of the schools are using all sure there are schools in chicago go visit and start their but it is harder to do that more schools if we continue tuesday caught in the teacher box. Thanks for the narrative but the part to that was concerning why does it have to be a choice between autonomy in the system with the strict control within democratic of structures . And at least if you are pork . And then the last thing a and thinking my one experience with Chicago Public schools as a build amazing programs that we teach how to do activities in the Previous Administration is committed to shut down the programs because their competition for the local turnarounds schools hopes of block. The first thing i would say is these issues of School Choice and how it plays out is so different depending upon where i am in the country. Suggested answering that specifically through chicago which ive not as knowledgeable about, what seems to stand out to me the most is that chicago seems like it has the lowest level of trust and transparency of any other major cities participating in the process. Kim from an outsiders perspective, the of budgetary issues seem pretty wheel. Real. In theory i could see how some schools will have to be closed. But mayor who announces 54 School Closings while on a ski trip in utah . That says everything about the extent to which there will be a real civic Energy AroundSchool Improvement which it to your point has a goal is to build better schools and here is where i get agnostic hint washington d. C. Most of these people it is like mom and pop