This friday edition of the washington journal. Were back tomorrow morning at 7 00. Check out our Schedule Information on our website at c span. Org. Have a terrific weekend. President obama yesterday ordered flags at half staff and honor of Nelson Mandela. He was in prison nearly three decades. He willly became be buried in his ancestral village on december 15. Following yesterdays news, president obama delivered a. Tatement at the white house at his trial in 1964, Nelson Mandela closed saying i have fought against white domination and i have fought against white ive cherish the ideal in which people can live in harmony. It is an ideal i hope to live within to achieve. It is an ideal for which i am prepared to drdie. Nelson mandela lived for that it real. He made today he has gone home, and we have lost one of the most influential, courageous, and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this earth. He no longer belongs to us. He belongs to the ages. Through his fierce dignity and unbending will to sacrifice his own freedom for the freedom of to transform south africa and move all of us. History from a prisoner to a president embodied the promise that human beings and countries can change for the better. His commitment to transfer power and reconcile with those who example thatnd an all humanity should aspire to, whether the lives of nations or our own personal lives. The fact that he did it all with grace and with humor, and the ability to it knowledge his own imperfections only makes the man that much more remarkable. , i am not aid saint unless you think of a saint as a center who keeps on trying. Trying. I am one of the countless millions who drew inspiration from Nelson Mandelas life. My very First Political action, the first thing i ever did that involved an issue or policy or politics was a protest against apartheid. I would study his words and his writings. The day he was released from prison gave me a sense of what human beings can do when they are guided by their hopes and not by their peers. Fears. Like so me around the cloak, i cannot imagine my life without the example that Nelson Mandela set. As long as i live, i will do what i can to learn from him. Family,elle and his michelle and i extend our deepest sympathy in sharing this extraordinary matter with us. As life and work took him long way away from those who love him most. I would hope that the time spent within the last few weeks gave comfort to his family. To the people of south africa, we draw strength of the example of renewal and reconciliation and resilience that you made real. , at peaceth africa with itself. That is an example to the world. Legacy to thes nation that he loved. We will not likely see the likes of Nelson Mandela again. Canalls to us as best we for the example that he set to make decisions guided not by hate byebye love, but by love, to never discount the difference that one person can make, to strive for a future that is worthy of his sacrifice. For now, let us pause and give thanks for the fact that Nelson Mandela lived, and man who took and bentn his hands the ark of the moral universe towards justice. May god bless his memory and keep him in peace. The Labor Department released the november jobs numbers showing the economy added 200 3000 jobs last month and dropping the Unemployment Rate year 7. 3 to 70 , a five low. The economy has generated just over 200,000 jobs from august to november, up from 159,000 per month between april and electorate and electorate reaction coming from capitol hill. House speaker john beat House Speaker john boehner release a statement todays report includes positive sign that mored discourage calls for emergency government stimulus third and said, what our economy needs is more progrowth solutions that get government out of the way. We will bring you live remarks from kentucky senator rand paul speaking at the Detroit Economic Club at 12 35 eastern right here on cspan feared also life during the 12 00 our on cspan2, discussion on hospital admission policies for medicare patients and how that impacts outof pocket expenses at 12 15 eastern. Also at 12 15 on cspan3, for president ialan candidate John Huntsman and evan bayh will speak about politics. They are cochairs of a group called no labels. Again, today at 12 15 eastern. You can feed on cspan3. You can see it on cspan3. I am a combat vet. I served in the navy for seven years before i was medically retired. I contracted a terminal lung of these in iraq. I also crushed both of my hands, parts of my hand and had to have my hands rebuilt. I am 100 disabled. I can no longer work, and my Life Expectancy down is probably less than two years. My husband is my primary caregiver. I dont need anything from the va any longer. My comp located claim took four years to adjudicate. Not once enough for years that i ever present one single piece of new evidence. The entire claim was submitted fully developed in its entirety before it was even before i was even discharged from the navy. I am here not to represent my. Laim or my issues my husband and i are here to make sure that this panel and that everyone that will listen to us will understand that cases like my own and unfortunately not mrs. Mcnutts are isolated. I personally have dealt with at justtime almost 1000 cases in the last six months of veterans and their spouses and children who are dealing with complex claims that are being denied over and over and over again or being lowballed. Span, this weekend on c the House Veterans Affairs subcommittee hearing on dealing with the vas backlog in processing disability claims. Watch saturday at 10 00 eastern. On book tv, taking stock of the grand old party. Late saturdayh night just past midnight at 12 15 a. M. American history tv, 50 years ago as a nation grieved for a lost president , lbj step from Vice President to the oval Office Sunday at 3 00. Randi weingarten president of the American Federation of teachers, spoke about the report. She spoke about the efforts to improve education. Hosted by the Christian Science monitor. This is just over one hour. Our guest is randi weingarten, president of the American Federation of teachers. This is her first visit with the group. She got an early look at the joys of helping children learn since her mother was a teacher. She earned degrees from Cornell University and a law degree from Cardozo School of law. She worked at a wall street law firm for several years. She taught history in brooklyn while serving as counsel for the president of the United Federation of teachers. She served as president for 12 years before her election as aft president in 2008. That ends the biographical portion of the program. As always, we are on the record here. Please no live blogging or tweeting or other means of filing well this is underway. There is no embargo on the breakfast. Our friends at cspan have agreed not to air video of the session until one hour after the breakfast is over to give reporters time to file. Give me a nonthreatening signal and i will call on one and all. Low on the subtleties scale, but nonthreatening anyway. The nonthreatening is what im concerned about. We will offer our guest the opportunity to make some opening comments and then we will move to questions around the table. Thank you for doing this. First of all i just want to say thank you for all of you for being here. And thank you for letting me engage in this giveandtake with everyone. Can you hear me . I am an asthmatic. When i am sitting instead of standing, i have to actually really use my lungs. It is an interesting i riff on that a little bit, because it is interesting when i Start Talking about things like Wraparound Services and health services, i know from my own teenage years that the days i was having a hard time breathing, i was having a hard time in school. The days that i could actually breathe well, i was more focused. When i Start Talking about things like Wraparound Services and health services, it is very primal to me. Today, it is the day after pisa day. I am sure that most of you filed some stories about pisa and the sky falling. I saw a lot of good reporting under the numbers, and i want to thank all of you for that. Weve been through this rodeo before. It is the third or fourth time that pisa results have had some real combustion in the United States. Having that data is really good. What does it say that the United States is pretty much in the middle of the pack for mathematics and science for the first time in 10 years. It has two or three things. Number one it says that things like poverty, social economics matter. If you look at the state like massachusetts and connecticut that the well, and what theyve done, and you look at the data when you pull it out and try to account for poverty, you see where the statistics are. But theres more to this. If you just stop there, we are in the inane debate that we have been in for the last 20 years. The issue is not whether poverty matters, but what can we do about it . The dominant educational strategy that weve done about it for he last 10 years is no child left behind and race to the top. That has been the dominant educational strategy. Thereve also been Charter Schools in competition and new standards, but that is the hyper testing, the sanctioning of teachers. That is the dominant strategy. What we have learned from the last set of results is that that strategy does not work to move the needle. It keeps us where we are, but it is not what works to move the needle. That is when you start looking at what are the other countries doing that allow them to outlast p us . What do they do . I and not suggesting that we be similar. I am not suggesting that we should be finland or shanghai. But the United States is different and we have to look at some of the things that they have done and say, can we adapt that here . Let me explain for things and then i will go to what we are trying to do to accomplish that. You have four minutes more. That is ok. Number one, the countries that outcompete us, they actually really value, deeply respect and value Public Education. The pisa results im saying that to my friends at the examiner, they have a big caution flag about the data. It is important to look at, but they have a big caution flag about choice and competition. That has increased segregation and poverty. In countries like chile, who have used it at the dominant education theory. Number two, they are preparing teachers, supporting teachers, giving them time to collaborate. As tom friedman has seen in shanghai and has written about. Number three, parents are really engaged. They are really engage not just in terms of being told what to do, but they are very engaged. Number four, the common core matters. Standards matter. But they must be done the right way, not just thrown out there and told to go do it. It must be implemented well. You see that in countries that outcompete us. Last poverty matters, but we have to lead with Equity Investments and Equity Strategies in order to address that. Things like prekindergarten, like Wraparound Services that is what it says. The bottom line is, what do you do about it . There are a whole bunch of groups, including our union and other groups. A group of community partners, parents, who actually started talking about this for the last two or three years. We have what we call now the principles for unity. We plan to reclaim Public Education, not as it is today, not as it was 50 years ago, but to be something that fulfills our collective responsibility for individual opportunity for all kids. That means, doing things such as having wellprepared teachers. If teachers are well prepared and if they are supported, and if they still cannot do their job, they should not be there. But we should have fair of evaluation systems. We also have to have standards. I am a big believer in the common core, but they have to be implemented right. We have to do what california has done. Delink testing for the time being so we can actually prepare and try to make these work. Number three, we have to focus on poverty and how we ensure that kids have a level Playing Field. The prek programs, the Wraparound Services that we need to do, and every school that works, every district it works, we have to focus and make sure that those schools are welcoming, safe environments. Welcoming, safe, and collaborative environments. You cannot show me a school that works or a district or a state or a country that works where the notion of collaboration as opposed to competition, the notion of a welcoming, safe environment so that schools are central to the community, are not the dominant theory as opposed to testing and sanctioning. That is what we are trying to do. Work with communities, solutions that are aligned with what communities need. We must rate neighborhood schools and try to make sure that Public Education is a hallmark of democracy and a propeller of our economy. Most importantly, we must really make sure that we figure out how to enable all kids to have the opportunity to not only dream big, but achieve them. Thank you. Let me ask you one or two and then we will go to kimberly to start. Let me ask you about the common core standards. You said you think that obamacare is bad and the implementation of the common core is far worse. Who is to blame and anyone stepping up to fix this . I am not a big believer in blame. I am a union leader and i could easily say, this one, this one, this one. If we are not rolling up our sleeves and actually engaging, then we are in the same debate over who cares about kids. I care about kids, no, i care about kids. That is a debate we are having. Let me just say, this is what i think is happened. We do education policy by press release. I think the governors and the state chiefs will write about saying, lets figure out a set of standards that are aligned to what kids need to know about the global economy. They move pretty fast about it. We were engaged with them and brought a lot of teachers who critiqued the materials and things like that. That is what matters. The public was not involved, parents were not involved, districts were not involved. It felt like, because of the speed at which it went, and because the federal government incentivized through the race to the top it became toxic. As it starts rolling out in a lot of communities and a lot of states, a person like john king will stay to districts you must implement. But new york state has been through a tax cap. A lot of other budget cuts. The things that teachers actually need to do, work together, use the standard as a guideline not as a straitjacket, have curriculum, method not happen. In a couple places it did, in a lot of places it did not. The big mistake that both the federal government made and and other people like king made is the level of testing king would say to you, i was sick and tired of telling people what to do and then not doing it. That is not your job to tell people what to do. Your job is to help navigate people through this again actual ship. Consequently, last year in new york, there were in Elementary Schools these tests. A lot of people were not prepared. John king and meryl tisch said the test results would be 30 less next year than they were right now. The question is how did they actually know the exact number . It creates huge distrust. You can actually figure out what the cut scores were and how to align it. Between the lack of preparation for teachers, the lack of communication with parents, and the sense that you are using the data, using the kids data, and you know exactly where the scores will come in. This year, what has happened is that because people did not fail the test, they do not have enough funding for actually real implementation. The state put something called engage new york on the state website. Some of the stuff is really good. Some of it is not. If you go to a teacher, think about it. If you say, heres the website and here are 500 pages, just do it. It is a huge instructional shift. It is not about wrote memorization, but critical thinking, helping kids persevere, helping kids get through it. That is why there are a lot of ways of saying that it was not done in a way that teachers trusted. Parents really embraced it, and you have to think about this is a huge new instructional shift. Kimberly . Do you anticipate that labor will come out early . Look, Hillary Clinton is someone that my union has supported for every single a job that she is either run for or sought. When she ran for senate in york state, we were out there and very supportive. When she ran for president in 2008, we were out there in supportive. I think it is far too early to talk about any of this. The last i heard, she had not even decided whether she was running or not. I think it is too premature. Frankly, theres is a lot of work we have to do between now and 2014, 2015. We are spending our time trying to figure out how to reclaim the promise of Public Education and figure out how Quality Health care is something that all americans have and getting through the ups and downs of obamacare. Im glad we fight is working the website is working better now. We need to work on affordable college, making sure there is Retirement Security for all. There is a lot of work to