We need some support local organizations on the ground serving these communities and making the most difference in our communities. Organizations such as the local and regional urban league. The bank for the buck we get from investing in these groups is enormous. They have Business Models to allow them to succeed. Finally, there has been a great deal of talk since the election on whether there is new life on the immigration issue. I believe there is. We are working hard to capitalize on the momentum the election provided on this issue. We have not heard a lot about how enacting comprehensive Immigration Reform can help on the job and economic issues. Immigration reform will create an effective system that levels the Playing Field for all workers. Right now, our immigration system does not work for anyone except unscrupulous employers. We need to take the power out of the hands of those who are exploiting our current immigration situation and put it back into the hands of fair and honest employers. If all immigrants have equal status, employers cannot skirt immigration laws. Immigration reform is the right thing to do as well as economically smart thing to do. Children should not have to live in the fear of their parents deportation every day of their lives. And the most Vulnerable People in our society should not be subject to harassment. I am truly appreciative of the support we have received from the urban league and other africanamerican leaders on this issue. I know there have been tensions in the past. I believe like reverend dr. Martin luther king jr. , when we have tensions we have to embrace them so we can come together. Lets get a solution on this issue. When we come together, we can figure this out. I had the privilege of marching earlier this year in the annual march from selma, montgomery. It was an incredible feeling. There i was with congressman john lewis, someone who has an historic role from the original march and so many others. It was ethel kennedy. It was reverend al sharpton. There were hispanic leaders there, including myself. Everyone came together. When we came over the bridge, i got a glimpse into what the might have been like in the past. I also got a glimpse of what the future looks like. It was powerful to me to know we could come this far after enduring so many challenges. And the fact we were there to get the fighting against Voter Suppression loss and anti immigrant and antihispanic loss gives me great confidence that we can tackle many important issues we face today. You have a commitment from the National Council of la raza to help figure the solutions out so we can keep the country stronger. Thank you very much. [applause] at this time, we are going to start the panel discussion. It is my pleasure to introduce Jonathan Capehart to moderate the discussion. [applause] good morning, everyone. Thank you all for coming. Like mr. Morial, i am not used to doing the good morning and waiting for the response back. I am Jonathan Capehart, opinion writer at the washington post. Mark, janet and chanel have set the stage for discussion. You have heard from mark. Next to market is joel packer, a noted authority on federal education policy. To his left is michael fauntroy, a professor of privilege Public Policy at george mason university. We have just heard from Janet Murguia from the National Council of la raza. With that, mr. Packer, the microphone is yours. Thank you for having me on the panel. I appreciated and i am unearned to be with my colleagues here. A couple of things about the reagan group. Raven group. It is a Public Relations firm. The majority of our clients are progressive, nonprofit organizations. Our firm is committed to enhancing the ideals of the broad range of the progress of community. Personally, i do education policy. I work for the National Education association and have worked with them for 25 years. I have been doing policy for 35 years. I would like to talk about some of the challenges we are facing. We are facing a lot of challenges. We will talk most about the challenges we face from the congress and a whole set of issues. I will start first about funding. One of the clients i represent is the committee for Education Funding, which is a coalition of 100 National Education organizations. Federal investment in education. We are facing loss of challenges. Since the recession started, there has been a decline of 250,000 School District jobs. There are fewer teachers, counselors, bus drivers, and other staff. That means larger classes, cut backs in afterschool programs. States are spending less money on a per pupil basis than they did four years ago because of budget downturns. State budgets are starting to recover, but many School Districts are heavily dependent on property taxes. Property values have far from the covered. Assessments lag behind what is going on with property values. We can expect some continuing declines in local school funding. At the federal level, we have had about 1. 50 billion in cuts to education programs. At the higher level from the federal government, there have been restrictions on eligibility for the Pell Grant Program and restrictions on the student loan program. College students have contributed 4. 50 billion out of their pockets toward deficit reduction. We have had things squeezing us at different levels. We are facing the biggest threat from what is called a sequester, the fiscal cliff. One part of the fiscal cliff arc across the board across the board are acrosstheboard spending cuts. They will be cutting housing and food safety and the entire range of domestic programs. For education, that will be head start, which is in the department of health and human services. There will be a 4. 80 billion cut, the largest education cut in the history of the country. That will move us that courts whether the goal is move us backwards. Our biggest challenge in the shortterm is to Work Together with groups like the urban league and the National Council of la raza to come up with a balanced approach to deficit reduction and ask people who can pay a little bit more to do so without balancing the budget on the backs of children and students and working people and low income people. A couple of quick things i want to say. We are also facing increasing enrollments. Enrollments are expected to go up in the next decade at the elementary and secondary level. We have 22 of children in the United States living in poverty, the highest level in decades. It creates more challenges for schools. In terms of the policy front, congress is gridlock. The main educational law was supposed to be read authorized in 2007, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2012. Next year is not optimistic. The current law is outdated and is over 10 years old and needs a lot of changes. The program that the urban league put together in your packet is a great plan. The program talks about focusing on the whole child. There has been this rift within the Education Community between the education reform groups and the traditional education groups. It is a question of, and schools over, all of the barriers and obstacles from property and housing and other things or can we focus more broadly on the whole child . The answer is, we need to do both. We need to approve teacher quality and we need to focus on issues like housing and poverty and employment for students families. At the higher level, lots of challenges due to state budget cuts. Tuition has gone up faster than Family Income in the last several years. There will be a big shortfall in the Pell Grant Program in the next fiscal year. That could further in up restricting eligibility. Student Loan Interest rates are scheduled to double again in july. We have another big fight about that. The Higher Education act is up for reauthorization. In addition to maintaining the nations commitment to pell grants and student loans, we need to do more for support programs for students. There are students who need counseling, tutoring, mentoring. Programs like trio and gear up, that helps give students academic support, mentoring, and counseling they need to succeed, is another critical piece of the puzzle. We will talk more about these during the discussion. Thank you. Michael fauntroy . Good morning. I will be speaking today from the perspective of an educated. I am a board member for the catholic scholarship endowment fund. We have given about 1. 5 million in scholarships to washington, d. C. We have raised more than 2 million. My experiences on the board and my experiences at the universities, george mason university, where i teach graduate and undergraduate students in Public Policy, have led me to a number of conclusions that run counter to what is the traditional view of what the American Dream is all about. As long as we can remember, a College Education has been the ticket to a more comfortable life. While that reality still exists, it is competing with some alternatives that will hamper urban america and america generally. The cost of the ticket to actually get in and complete college represent a barrier that i believe will ultimately injured our economy. Not only that, but a rapid change in technological revolutions has created a spatial mismatch between the kinds of jobs that are going to be available Going Forward and the kinds of people who are able to take those jobs. That problem is most acutely seen in urban communities, which have been coming to your point, dealing with more basic concerns more so than trying to prepare and get ready and respond to changes in Going Forward. That is for those who are actually going to college and graduated. We have not even talked about those who are not. Our young people are following what is going on. They are seen with their older friends are dealing with an understandably wonder about their prospects. We have to play pay close attention to that. I am a high art educator and i teach in a Public University system. In the state where i teach, virginia, you see a number of state legislative budget cuts for colleges and universities throughout the commonwealth. A virginia is one of 8 states that have cut at least 30 in their funding over the past decade or so. To public institutions. Public institutions on the backbone of american Higher Education. Public institutions are being cut and that is more evidence that we have a significant problem Going Forward. When we talk about cuts in Public Education, we should think about the flagship institutions. There are a number of other institutions below the flag ship level that are impacted. I am a graduate of historically black colleges and universities. I understand that these hbcus have been a prime socializes for middleclass africanamericans. If we see fewer people going into the doors and fewer people coming out with degrees, that is something we need to be concerned about. The particular worry that i have is one of gender imbalance at hbcus. At hbcurity of coeds ofhave a male enrollment 35 . Think of what that means socially for those students. I just want to make those two final points, one tactical and 1 policy. The tactical point i would like to make is we have to do a better job of successfully mastering the language of policy. We have heard on of these discussions about the hyper scientific way the Obama Campaign was able to target people annualize language to motivate them to the polls. We also know there have been marketing changes in the way some policy issues have been approached. I want to make a call to always talk about these issues as investments and not just more spending. As marc morial noted earlier, people say urban, but they mean something else. We cannot have these concerns that are legitimate and worthy pushed aside because some people want to play games with words. Lets call it investment infrastructure, education and so forth. Janet talked about the fiscal cliff. We are in the midst of a wide range of discussions about what the economy is going to look like Going Forward and what kind of changes need to be made. I want to call for an elimination to the ceiling for Tax Deductions on student loans. As you know, there is a limit on what one person can earn and still deduct the interest on their student loan payments. Lets reward people who have taken the time to invest in themselves and say, once you have a vested up to a certain number, you can no longer give that deduction. Going to glad to school and medical school is more expensive and we need to encourage people to take on graduate school and not use money as a barrier to keep them out. I will close if there. Thank you. I may have to talk to you about that. That is an interesting idea you had at the end. I look forward to hearing about it today on msnbc. Lets not push it. We go to these things all the time where education is important and children all children are our future, yet every time there is a budget crunch, education always gets the ax. Can you explain why this is so important . These are investments. There is no argument about that. If these are such critical investments, why is education always getting cut at the federal, state, and local levels . Part of the reason is politics. The mathematicians sees the world in numbers and ankles. Lawyers see the world in justice and contracts. I am a Political Science at decatur and i see the world in politics. Those educator and i see the world in politics. The people who benefit most from Public Education are not necessarily the people in the room passing the votes on where the money goes. For me, that is where the money that is where it starts. You can build up from there to a number of issues that may be a part of it all. When you look at congress in particular and look at the people making those decisions, i do not think they have education as a priority. I think they have other priorities. There are Different Reasons for the state and federal level. At the state level, education is a large part of every states the second largest part of every states budget. The states have had large contractions when it comes to walling off k12 education. A lot of legislatures look at Higher Education and say we can cut funding and they can make up the difference. It is shortsighted because it is squeezing out access. At the federal level, our problem is everybody you talk to in congress with the exception of the Tea Party Types will say, i am a big supporter of education. The problem is education is part of the pot of money that is called nondefense discretionary. It has become the easiest part to cut because they can say hills with cutting that money, but they do not have to identify what is being they can say, we will cut that money, but they do not have to live in the phi what is being cut. Identify what is being cut. The small of the pot gets, the less likely it is to get an increase. I agree. We are talking about children and money targeted to hide poverty areas. Those are the voices that do not have as much political power as other voices on what happens in congress. Our hope is that with these demographic change we are seeing out there that the broader population will understand that this really is about investment. It is not about spending any more. When you have a 20 gap in Educational Attainment between white and 9white kids, which is bad enough nonwhite kids, which is bad enough imagine in 10 years when the nonwhite kids are going to be 40 . I think there is more and more a link in the thinking between what is happening today and what happens tomorrow. In the past, i am not sure we saw a crisis around the low Educational Attainment levels that were happening with the current student population and with that potentially means for us in the future. You have to expect that as people are looking at the future work force and what skills we are going to need to be competitive and to support the various entitlement programs that are out there, you need a workforce that is able to be engaged and globally competitive. If we are not able to close that gap, this affects not just the hispanic and africanamerican communities, it affects the country. We have to do a better job of communicating with the impact of those investments today will mean tomorrow. As you have all mentioned, there is the fiscal cliff that is coming. We have sequestration. On top of that, somewhere in a big White Building with a dome on it, they have to deal with the growing debt. At some point, folks will have to tighten their belts. Lets pretend this is our own fiscal cliff negotiating session. Which three programs that can possibly be cut absolutely must be walled off from being cut if these investments are to be maintained and not hurt the country in the future. Dr. Fauntroy. I will put it in this context. The entire budget of the u. S. Department of education is less than 2 of the entire budget. Will have no impact on the federal budget. You can eliminate the entire u. S. Department of education budget and it will not have any impact. It is shortsighted and it will harm us in the long term. The higher levels of education people have, the more they are earning on average and the more they are paid in taxes and the less likely they are to be unemployed and getting food stamps and other