Welcome to the journal editorial report. As more obama care problems plague the white house, president obama now apologizes that americans are losing their Health Care Coverage when he originally promised they would be able to keep it period. Now even democrats are admitting that health care. Gov should be shut down until its fixed and made that proposal to Kathleen Sebelius this week. Youve indicated that delays health care for a lot of people. And i appreciate that, but if you want more time, why not just get it done right . And this week, 16 Democratic Senators met with the president at the white house to express their concerns about the health care glitches. 12 of those senators voted for the Affordable Care act in 2010 and face reelection next year. Dan lettinger. Editorial board member joe rego and washington columnist kim straso. This is not a president who apologizes for much. Recently, he just said were going to grind it out. I think thats a direct quote. Were going to grind it out on obama care. Why the switch on the apology . I think after what are hes been through with obama care the last two weeks and that meeting with the 15 senators, he had to stop the political bleeding on this problem. He had to do something. So hes apologized tore the american people. Problems remain that are going to be very difficult to reverse. First of all do you think that apologys sincere . Is that just a tactical shift to try to say i feel your pain . I think its a tactical shift. I feel your pain. This is a president who said you can keep your policy or your doctors period. That statement was false period, okay. He cant reel that back no matter how much they try to rewrite it. Speaking of rewriting, these 15 senators i think are now themselves literally only discovering what was in the law. They knew the broad outlines but they didnt understand the law would require some people lose their policy or lose their doctors so the costs saved there could be transferred to the laws other provisions. If they understood that, they themselves might not have voted for it. They cant reel that back. That is the law as the white house says over and over. How much panic is there, if thats not too strong a word, among Senate Democrats . There was a lot of hand holding. The president saying, dont worry, were going to get this fixed by the end of november. This is temporary. This will all be over. Just a short term problem. Are they do they believe them . Paul, you can smell the fear rising up off the pavement down here in washington. Theres a lot of nervousness. That being said, theres a little bit of a game goinghere. You have growing numbers of senate democrat, House Democrats jumping on board with legislation to delay or change or make sure that people can keep their health insurance. On the other hand, they have been told by the white house that this website is going to be fixed by the end of november. I think some are stringing this out. Theyre hoping it does get fixed before they have to pull the pin on any legislation. If it doesnt get fixed, theyre going to be in a much tougher spot. But the groundwork is being laid to actually make some big moves here. Thats the thing, i mean, i dont see them, any of these democrats, proposal real substantive changes to the bill. These are token gestures. Well, well just wait for six weeks before the Enrollment Period or something. Or well delay the penalty for a few weeks. None of that addresses the real heart of the legislation. Thats the problem. No, thats right. What youre going to see, next week, for instance, is House Republicans are going to try to actually put them on the spot, exert some pressure. So House Republicans are going to have a vote on legislation, guaranteeing that people can keep their existing Health Coverage for another year if they want it. Well see how many House Democrats vote for that. There could be pressure on the senate to do that as well. 20 or 30, maybe more, House Democrats will vote for that as political cover. I want to ask joe about a sentence the president said on his policy statement. He said, obviously, we didnt do a good enough job in terns of how we drafted the law, crafted the law, unquote. Wait a minute. They knew exactly what they were doing when they crafted the law. Am i wrong . No, aaxial, actually, hes sorry theyre mad theyre losing their policies. Im sorry you feel that way. If i offended you at all, i apologize. This bill is designed to destroy those policies. Thats why theyre disappearing. Thats what they wanted to do all along. They decided those policies were inferior. Even if people preferred them and they wanted to get rid of them and substitute in new policies that are government approved. They wanted to destroy the individual Insurance Market to fade away. That means drive everybody in the exchanges. We had a cancer patient this week, write in our paper in california that she may be in danger of using her oncologist. Right, just very limited choices in the exchanges narrow networks. So this person wrote, for example, in the exchange policy, she couldnt go to m. D. Anderson. Houston Cancer Center. Renowned Cancer Center in texas. So it really just disrupted her care for a stage 4 cancer patient. And were seeing that nationwide, state to state, not just california. I think the democrats, Senate Democrats have to break here, before the president would even consider any substantive changes. You agree with that . I think so. Hes going to have to be under tremendous pressure. Really, as joe was suggesting, this law is structured in a way thats going to make it very difficult to revise or break apart at this stage. It will either be a delay i think or nothing much is going to happen. When we come back, new jersey votes for Chris Christie again. What can the Republican Party learn from his reelection . Im beth. And im michelle. And we own the paper cottage. Its a stationery and gifts store. Anything we purchase for the paper cottage goes on our ink card. So you can manage your business expenses and access them online instantly with the Game Changing app from ink. We didnt get into business to spend time managing receipts, thats why we have ink. We like being in business because we like being creative, we like interacting with people. So you have time to focus on the things you love. Infrom chase. So you can. Does your dog food have . 18 percent . 20 . New purina one true instinct has 30. Active dogs crave nutrientdense food. So we made purina one true instinct. Learmore at purinaone. Com i know if we can do this in trenton, new jersey, maybe the folks in washington, d. C. Should tune in their tvs right now, see how its done. New jersey governor christie says he can work with opposing parties and get things done for his state. So why cant washington . Christie won reelection by a wide margin and gained the majority of women and hispanics, two key demographics. Were back with washington columnist kim strassel and our other guests. Kim, a lot of talk about governor christie now on the left and the right. Is he a model for republicans, how to win . Aspects of what he has done definitely are a model for how republicans want to win. The idea for any party is youve got to expand the tent and christies way is to increase his tone and message. Hes actually a conservative governor but he does attempt to reach the other side. He talks to all voters. He had a good ground game up in new jersey, went out to a lot of different communities all during his first term, to make sure they knew what he accomplished. As a result, you saw it in those fin final poll numbers. He made the tent bigger. How much is this about christies personal, unique personal political talents that arent translatable nationally . He is a charismatic guy. He also shows you can go out and get minority votes. You can go out and get young voters. He also increased his numbers among blacks and among young people age 18 to 29. By double digits. This is what the gop needs to do. He said in his speech you have to go to places where youre not comfortable. He cant just show up six months before the election and start then. I think the mindset of too Many Republican candidate has been to write off large segments of the voting public. And christie shows even in the obama era you can get minority votes if youre willing to work for them. And not let your opponent paint a picture of you. You listen to the governors victory speech. Do you think it suggest, a man ready to go natural . I think hes hard to beat in terms of charisma, but also because he is a man who can use a little touchup and a little listening to. It was a very selfregarding speech. A little too much about me, me, me . Me, me, me, yes. And it was a sense you dont hear all that often in christie. This plays against an era where we have a president who never uses a personal pronoun, i, i, i, i sent these troops. If youre running as a republican, you dont want to sound like that. You want to be the guy he normally is, down to earth fellow, instead of the symphony of exal tation about new jersey into which he falls now. This is a speech he should be watching before he goes on the campaign trail. I have great hope for christies capacity to learn. Jason, what do you think . Ive listened to the governor. He can be very compelling. He tends to go on and on and on. Its a particular kind of discipline. That i think can get you into trouble. Its a great 20minute speech. When its a great 30minute speech, they think, how can i get out of here . Thats why we have the long primary process. Hell get tested. I think hell get better as he goes forward. But i think he has a very compelling case to make here. This is a very blue state. This is a state obama won by double digits. He comes out of this race with a running start. I think, particularly, his ability to appeal to different democratic groups can go a long way. The liberals are already saying his appeal is hes a moderate. And that is not a conservative like all those other crazy republicans in washington. So how does he bridge that in a republican primary, to be able to persuade conservatives who are the bulk of the primary voters . Christies problem here, and he is relatively conservative for the party. But, you know, being from new jersey and having to work in that environment, the reality is he steps back. Some of the reforms hes done have not been as striking as, for instance, what scott walker did. I think what you see happen is he settle also into the second term. Youre going to see a pivot. Hell be more aggressive about putting out things that really do resonate with the Republican Base on taxes and government reform. Maybe some areas where hes been a little weaker, for instance. And try to position himself. All right, kim, thanks. When we come back, new education reforms in washington, d. C. And tennessee have taken effect. Find out how well schools in those region, have improved next. [ camera shutter clicks ] now, thats cardworthy. [ n ] all right. Here we go. Cardworthy. [ female announcer ] this holiday season, visit shutterfly. Com for all your cardworthy moments. Add brand new belongings from nationwide insurance and well replace stolen or destroyed items with brandnew versions. We put members first. Join the nation. Nationwide is on your side the nations report card is out. The latest result is the educational progress of tennessee and the District Of Columbia made the biggest improvements in math and reading. What are those School Districts doing that sets them apart from the rest . Im joined by michelle reid, former d. C. School chancellor and founder of studentsfirst. Org. Welcome back to the program. Great to have you here. Thanks for having me. If you look at the results, lets look at the top line first nationwide. It looks like theres not as much progress between 2011 and 2013 as we would like nationwide. Do you agree with that . We saw a little uptick here and there but overall the nation is not gaining ground in the way we would want to see it. Okay. Lets focus in on where there was progress. Two of those states, well, District Of Columbia, where you were the former schools chancellor and tennessee. What do you think explains their rather remarkable progress . Tennessee catching up to almost the National Average it the district, as you know, having been one of the worst School Districts in the country. Large numbers of kids in failing schools and while we cant contribute directly any one policy to the gains weve seen, we have to look at what were they doing. As we ask that question, its very clear both of these states are places that are invested in teacher effectiveness. They characterize that by putting in place different pay structures, recognizing the very best teachers in the classroom. They put in place rigorous systems. They invested heavily in professional development. The second thing they did is put in place high standards. Both of them were early adapters the common core standards which are a set of internationally benchmarked standards that will make sure the kids cap up with the rest of the world so were no longer 25th in math. Lets dig into teacher evaluations a little bit. One of the keys seems to be weve got to link it to teacher performance. Link it to do you see progress on tests . Is that key . When i was the d. C. , we had a circumstance where only 8 of the children in eighth grade were on grade level in mathematics. When you looked at the performance evaluations of adults in the system, 98 were rated as doing a great job. Everybody was a genius. You have a disconnect. D. C. And tennessee were the two jurisdictions across the country that actually implemented the model first, which said we have to link how well students are doing, how much theyre growing to a teachers evaluation. I think were beginning to see the fruits of that. You talk about rewarding good teachers with extra pay, but how do you weed out teachers . How do you decide who stays and who goes . Its important to know when you put in place a teacher Evaluation System, you cant look at teachers through any one lens. You have to look at them through multiple lenses. What both d. C. And tennessee did was implement teacher Evaluation Systems that looked at one student growth but, two, classroom observations, three, here in tennessee, theyre using student surveys to link to teacher evaluation. So you have to look through multiple lenses at a teachers performance overall. When teachers are not performing where they need to be, when they are rated as ineffective, there has to be real consequences. In d. C. , you could be removed the first year. If you were minimally effective, you got a year to shape up. And then but you could be removed that second year. One of the things thats striking in d. C. Many of those labeled minimally effective decided, ill leave on my own. So that was a significant incentive for to sort the good from the bad. Thats right, stanford and the university of virginia just did a study on the Evaluation System and the paper performance system that d. C. Put in place. And what it said was that because the higher performers were being paid a whole lot of money, the district was retaining them at higher rates. Which is what you want. For those at the bottom of the scale, ineffective teachers and minimally effective teachers, because they knew it was you know, they had to either improve or leave, you saw a lot of low performers sort of choosing to leave. But what you also saw was that the district invested money and resources and time into making all teachers better. Ensuring theres good professional development options. So a lot of the teachers in the middle all improved their performance which is exactly what you want to see. I remember writing about your fight in d. C. To get this through. A lot of the unions really fought it. How can we spread this success and d. C. And tennessee, this model, elsewhere around the country . I think what you need is courageous politicians. Any time you are really disrupting the status quo, youre implementing significant change that people are not used to, youre going to get a lot of pushback. In tennessee, both governor haslem and commissioners have been moving forward on aggressive reforms but theyre also facing a tremendous amount of opposition. You have to be able to push through that as politicians and say, you know what, even though some adults might not be happy with this, this is what is good and right for kids. Its ways goiwhats going to produce Better Outcomes for children. We have to take one more break. When we come back, our hits and misses of the week. Vo two years of grad school. 20 years with the company. Thousands of presentations. 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