Sen. John Kerry's Speech on Education in Portsmouth (New Hampshire)

Please welcome Senator John Kerry. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Karen. Oprah Brown that generous introduction that found me stumbling into politics it's hard to get into politics when you go to B.C. law folks and come by. It's a delight to be here. It really is. I drove up and I saw the media one trucks and I said God they're really going to cover this today. That I realized that's their home. So no big deal right. Miracle is delightful to be here with you on the occasion of the three hundred and seventy fifth anniversary none of you look threaders are you five years old. You look pretty good. But it's an honor to be here with you. The city of the open door and it's nice to share that with you as a neighbor and a great hearty congratulations to Senator Byrd and to the remarkable job that was done in the Senate. I know he made a comment. Election night that really hit

me. People have said well what's it going to be like to be announced or introduced as the majority leader of the Democratic Senate. And he caught the meaning of this election. He said I'm not going to think of it as the Democratic Senate I'm going to think of it as the people's Senate. And I thought that was a terrific statement and I'm glad. Thank you Eric for the warm comments about your accomplishments and what Franklin Pierce means here it's so wonderful to be part of an education discussion and I heartily look forward to the dialogue that Karen promised you and I I will there there's only one Mike I can kind of wander around here talking. Good. Is this on can you hear me still. It's a lot that I can get out from under this. You know they say that sometimes this is the place where the rubber meets the road this is the place where the head meets the ceiling. But anyway I was thinking you know Kern was

struggling with my introduction and so I was thinking what do I say about or unduly embarrass her and you know put her on the spot. And I and I thought for a moment a wonderful story that I'll just share with you quickly and it's a true story. William Howard Taft was being introduced in New York by this wind bag old United States senator. None of those qualities I will emulate. A fellow by the name of try and see. How many of you ever heard of Chauncey to be. I mean the historians we have we've got a few here. So Chauncey in the pew. You know this is back in the days of this talk show circuit and you gained your your spurs in politics by hitting it on the rubber chicken circuit. I know what they are. Back then he saw this moment and knew this was his moment to make his fame. So he took the most of it and William Howard Taft was sitting down at the end of this long head table and he was a

man of incredible girth at that point in his life. So the closest he could get to the table was about two and a half feet away or something. And Chauncey Depew is winding up and getting stentorian and pompous and he likes that he said Ladies and gentlemen just look we have with us tonight up president of the United States and I want you to look at him sitting there pregnant with hope pregnant with courage should I give you the president of the United States. You know Taft kind of takes the most of this and he gets up kind of rubs his tummy a little and he saunters up and he looks out at the mall and he says pregnant A. Well I have news for you ladies and gentlemen if it is to be a boy we will call it courage and if it's to be a girl we will call her hope. But if as I suspect it is merely gas we will call it Chauncey Depew.

So I. Hope so. I. Know you'll say why was I thinking of that while Karen was this. And the bottom line is that I was reaching for this way and I couldn't find it because she was much too nice and much too generous. And I thank you for for it's sort of really cavorting through a convoluted history very quickly. Time is of the essence. I'd love to share some great tales with you. I'm very privileged to be here as a elected member of Congress. It is nice these days to be invited anywhere as a elected member of Congress. And so it's good to share some thoughts with you and I must say to you I was thinking about this driving up here. I don't have any tapes to play for you. But I've got some thoughts that come from the heart.

And from the gut and I sense that some of our friends in Washington somehow still just don't get it. They haven't quite understood what the election was about and they haven't quite understood what it is that Americans really want today. And I think it's different. I think it's different from what most people are offering from both parties. I've been at this for a while now. And I am a Democrat proudly and I think there are differences and I'm proud of fighting for those differences. But it strikes me that there are ways to fight about those differences that raise politics that lift the country and lift all of us in our aspirations and in our ability to have a dialogue the world after all is

looking to the United States of America as we cross this great transition from the last years of the last decade of the last century of the millennium. It's not a small moment. And the issues are really in many ways far more complex than they were 15 and 20 years ago when it was bipolar. East-West communism the United States very clearly defined the enemy was clearly defined and the ability to build coalitions and to be able to put together the kind of united front that was necessary to deal with those choices was much much easier than it is today in a much more complex market place where the rules are changing faster and faster and us more businesspeople understand that better than anybody in the world in which the choices

are harder to build consensus around than they have ever been before. The diversity of media markets the the plethora of complicated choices that we face and frankly the pressures of modernity. What has happened to life in America to the life of the average community the life of the average person because of this incredible insatiable appetite we have in America for more more more no matter what the disconnect is to the values that really are associated with community and citizenship. As I heard Charlie Vaun be introduced as Issas in the year Charlie and I met when I was up here a few weeks ago and I learned then of his status special status as somebody who had served his country but more especially spent time captured and what that means and I

think about that in the context of today as I was watching television the other day with these 3000 troops down in New Jersey who were on television recorded as they were writing their wills last will and testament with the prospect that they were heading over to Iraq to stand up for something. Most people in America I think are significantly disconnected from what Charlie's experience was or from that experience in New Jersey or from what it means to sacrifice something to give something back. And in many ways I think there is a very serious. Confrontation that we need to have. Republican and Democrat conservative liberal not under those labels but as Americans as Americans. Robert Kennedy once said that I paraphrase it I remember it

completely but he said that. Whether you're the richest most powerful person on the face of this planet or whether you are the poorest person you share this one great asset which is the word America in fact of being in America. And he said it's difficult to say exactly what that means except that it certainly means that all of us came from exiles and outcasts as strangers to this country and that if we deny outcasts and strangers their ability to participate we are denying what it means essentially to be American. Now why do I say that to you here this morning. Business people. This is a chamber. We do want to talk about business and unquestionably this country's business is.

As former president once said business because we've got to have those jobs. We need the high value added base. We need to be able to maximize our intellectual capacity in the new marketplace that we have. And no matter the power of a politician I don't care who they are what their communication skills are with Tony Blair Bill Clinton who have great skills. No person can turn back the forces of technology and globalization Well we need to learn to do is tame those forces to harness that energy and make it work for us better. And that means that we need to think more about the kind of country that we're building the kind of community that we're able to build as we build our businesses as we go out into the marketplace. And nothing is more important than nurturing small business. I understand that as the ranking member of the Small Business Committee and one who's been involved in

helping to write the Small Business Investment Corporation Act the Small Business Innovation Research Act. Small Business Lending corporations micro lending and we can proudly look at more women owned businesses than we've had in years in this country we can look at huge numbers of of entry level startups that are turning into productive high value added job base adders to our tax base and to our economy this is vital. And I want more of it. Which is why I am the author of a zero capital gains tax for new startups. Up to 100 million dollars of new issue of stock in the areas of the most advantageous technologies that will build the largest base. These are things we can do but that's not what I want to talk to you about this morning. That's the easy stuff.

The harder stuff is the stuff of how we are going to pull back from this precipice that we're on. Are our school system appears to be imploding. Where we have no dialogue at all about what we really ought to be doing. We're Republican and Democrat or like we're just talking past each other. Republicans talk about vouchers. Democrats talk about putting more money into the system and in the middle somewhere you've got this issue of accountability standards discipline some old fashioned things that really make schools work that somehow are missed as the polarization takes place and we lose generation in the process. Do you think I'm kidding about that. I think that's just political rhetoric. Well deal with facts because facts speak and implacable truth that is essential to any decision making that we try and attempt in this country. Fact out of 2.6 million kids graduating from high school a couple years ago. Those last autistics we have which tell you something.

Fully one third of them were below basic reading level one third of them were at basic reading level which is not proficient at basic and less than a third were proficient with only 100000 of those kids at a world class reading level 30 percent of the children who graduate from our high schools in the United States of America start college in remedial essentials math writing arithmetic so forth. Has anybody stopped to ask what kind of principle or what kind of school system hands a diploma to a child knowing that they're giving that person a piece of paper that's a license to go out and have a low wage conceivably minimum income job for the rest of their life unless they get additional schooling. Why do we do that. Every day we release five million kids from school at two o'clock in the afternoon.

And those children go home to apartments or houses in which there is no adult from that hour until 6:00 or 7:00 in the evening. Why don't we do that. I took Judge Barry McCaffrey the drug czar to a school in Charleston. They had it last year. Yes it was. And we had about 40 kids in front of us in the classroom and I asked them I said how many of you children leave here the afternoon 1:30 2 o'clock will every hand went up to middle school 10 to 14 years old. How many of you leave school and there's no adult in your house. Wherever you go from the hour that you leave here until the evening 6:00 or 7:00 I'm telling you more than 50 percent of the hands in that class went up in front of the drug czar and seven years ago the Carnegie Foundation told us those are the hours when children. Wind up getting in the most trouble either unwanted pregnancies meeting a drug dealer or any other kind of trouble that adolescents are

prone to get into. Most people know and this is historical in this country. The Trover needs structure. Children need values. Children need input. And contrary to most of the politicians who want to talk to you about family values values don't drop out of a leader in the room the speeches being given in the news. We all know or taught and there are only really three great teachers in life. Your parents or family your school the teachers who are there to be your teachers and religion. Now there is such a thing as street values that get taught but those are coping values not the real values as a society want to impart to people. So the question we have to ask ourselves and I say this to you plaintively with pleading in my heart and in my words we need in this country to pay attention to real business why do you think parents are

opting for vouchers. Do you think it's because they wake up in the morning. Loving vouchers the answer is No. They wake up in the morning loving their children and wanting their children to have the best education they can have in the world. And fearful fearful that given the problems they see and witness and here in the current school system if their child is stuck there their child will not have the opportunity to start a small business to go to the best college to get one of those high value added jobs and provide for their family. So it's an issue of an excellence of standards. Now there are in the public school system some extraordinary public schools. Eric will tell you that we've got some great public schools that do the job. And they sent kids to Harvard UMass B you Tufts wherever in the country they send them there. But there are also some dramatic failures and too many of them.

And what parents are doing is voting with their cars and with their feet by taking their kids to parochial to private. And guess what. Fastest growing part of American education today. Home learning fastest growing institution in learning in America teaching at home because they don't trust go into the system. So the question has to be asked by anybody who wants to be honest about this process. How are we going to fix it. And why is it important to fix it. Well it's important to fix it obviously because the greatest restraint on growth in New Hampshire in Massachusetts in all of New England not to mention eventually the rest of the country will be the lack of available skilled labor pool. That's the greatest restraint on our economic growth if you're in business. It is a business proposition and I know Portsmouth understands this because you've got your collaborative and you're working with your schools. It's it best business interest to be

part of the process of pulling our schools back from this break. How do you do it where you do it by offering people something different than the pablum of American politics which has been content with playing at the fringes and just dealing with sort of part of the problem. It's not enough to talk about having smaller classes. I respect the effort but it's not enough. What good does it do if you have a bad teacher teaching a bad curriculum without standards without ongoing mentoring evaluation programs education to simply make the class smaller so they teach badly to a smaller group of kids. That's not enough. You've got to have an overall approach that says what are the problems of the school. Well let me tell you some of the roads we've got we need we need 2 million new teachers in America in the next 10 years. Do you think we're preparing for that. We need 60 percent of those two million in the next five years. We put 61000

new teachers into our schools this year. But you know what. And I hate to say this. I want to say it as nicely as I can because I had the support of teachers. I want to support teachers. I believe teachers are discredited disrespected by people wrongly in this country. They've been asked to do a job. That's impossible. They have kids coming to school today with a whole set of problems unlike any kids ever in the history of this country. Kids come hungry kids come disturbed and we don't have enough counseling we don't have the ability with all of our single parenting structures to be able to provide adequately. And teachers are asked in seven hours to make it all correct. So I'm not here to say this the fault of teachers. But I'm telling you what's happening in the country. I go to a college and I ask kids who's going to be a teacher here and you're lucky if you get one or two hands go up. Why. Because the average kid comes out of school so saddled with loans they can't think about going in for a $23000 $21000 starting salary after 15 years in the Masters you wind up in the 30s and maybe 40s and depending on the school

system with the standard of living you may get the 50s and 60s in some places you can't do that you can't do that. And the result is that in the United States of America today people going into teaching regrettably of all the professions have the lowest 80s and the lowest ACTC and we lose 30 to 40 percent of them in the first three to four years from attrition and the ones that stay unfortunately are embattled and don't have the capacity. So I think this is the great crisis for our country if we're going to restore this capacity to be able to build for business. But it isn't just business my friends it's building for democracy. You can't hope to build the basis of a body politic that needs to be able to make the kinds of complex choices we need to make as we go into the next century without an electorate that is capable of making the kinds

of choices that have to be made. You face a very tough decision of piercers of the Clairemont to decision. How are you going to fund these schools. What are you going to do. How do you equalize against an area that doesn't have a tax base and therefore can't have computers can't have an after school program may not have arts and music and sports which I think incidentally are essential ingredients of an adequate education. All of those things. No school in America should be shutting its doors at two o'clock in the afternoon. We ought to have the availability in this modern society to be able to provide the ongoing capacities not just for students but for parents alike. Schools should become a center of community capacity and activity with language training and other kinds of aspirations being met in them and the building of community will come out of that. It doesn't just begin in the sixth grade and that's the other message. First grade at 6 years old. That's the second part of the message I want to convey to you.

Kit Bond from Missouri and I have introduced legislation called the early child intervention act early child development. The truth is that too many of our children today are coming to school restrained in their capacity to learn because of the early childhood experiences. And I want you to again measure facts one third of all of America's children are today born out of wedlock. Think about that one third of all of America's children. Pat Moynihan warned America of this in the 1960s but then it was only 27 percent among African-Americans because he dared to point it out among African-Americans. He was called a racist and the subject went under the table for 20 years and only now are we inheriting. So the lack of focus on it and so it is now 79 percent in the inner city among African-Americans. You can go to South Side of Chicago Washington D.C. Los Angeles parts of Boston places

and it's 49 percent among Hispanics but now guess what. It's 27 percent among Caucasians. So it's not a racial issue it's an American problem and it's a problem that is also a reflection of opportunity mores values and other things that have begun to just dissipate disintegrate. So the simple question for all of us to ask ourselves is how do you pull it back. How do you come back from that precipice How do you break the cycle. How do you change it. And after all the I know I spent time as a prosecutor in the DA's office talking to young kids and I've spent time as a senator going in and trying to find out what happened to this 16 year old. I started a program nationally called Youth Build. I didn't start the program originally but I found it in New York City and made it a national program. It's now in 101 cities. We take kids out of gangs. We take them out of at risk programs so we put them into this thing called Youth Build and the city gives over a

building and the kids remake the building and the architects are donated and the labor is donated and they learn a skill when they get their GED at the same time. I can show you kids my friends I promise you they said to me Senator this program saved my life. This is the first time in my life anybody told me I'm of value first time in my life somebody said I love you first time in my life that I've had to be responsible for other people and be part of a community effort and I'll show you kids who've gone on to graduate from Rutgers. I'll show you a manager of the third Harbor Tunnel lottery program. I'll show you people who've become productive citizens because adults turned around and said it makes a difference and we care. Well when does it matter the most. It matters the most between the ages of birth. Even pre-birth to 6 years old. Because 95 percent of brain development takes place in the first three years of life.

Ninety five percent. And there isn't a pediatrician or a child psychologist or psychiatrist who will not tell you that what a child will be as an adult is so determined in those earliest stages. And yet I go to Boston's early child development centres Castle Square there are sixty seven wonderful children and they're being nurtured and cared for structured given sanctuary from the chaos of life outside of that place and for the 67 that are in there. There are five hundred on the waiting list and they'll never crossed the threshold of the place before they go to the first grade. So we have kids going to first grade who can't do numbers can't recognise shapes or forms and we ask those teachers then to turn around and correct it all even as they deal with special needs kids and the rest of the classroom. I think you get the picture. The picture is one which requires us as leaders and as adults as business people as

opinion leaders to say it's not their fault it's our choices and we have to make a set of decisions that will respond to this new life we live in and America where we've seen this kind of disintegration and ask ourselves how do we pull it back. Well I wind up very quickly that I want to open it up. How do you pull it back. Well I don't think you know we've all learned something in the last 15 or 20 years not as a matter of political expediency but as a matter of political reality. We don't need a Washington solution. They really don't work that well. We need Washington often to leverage we need Washington to create a framework. We often need Washington to provide resources to leverage behavior but we certainly don't need the big hand of Washington coming in and saying this is the way you're going to do it because in fact all across this country there are these extraordinary efforts today that work right now that are functional and they're not Washington. You know what they are. It's so simple that sometimes it baffles me that we don't

build on it. They are big brother big sister boys club girls club YMCA YWCA youth center Jewish advocacy Jewish community center Catholic Charities. What have you. And everywhere that they are engaged and working. I will show you success stories and I think you know that sadly the 1980s ushered in to America a pejorative notion about anything called a program. And so we've had these terrible debates in Congress where midnight basketball even started by Birmingham police force keeping kids off the streets could be a term of derision. Well what we need to do in my judgment is all of us step back and try to find the common ground where children and problem solving

become the premium which we're placing our investment and the politics sort of takes a back door for a while because children are being lost in the process. Now for those who love vouchers the solution to the school system let me just say to you they might work and they might be good for the kids who get them but they don't go far enough. If you give them the 1000 kids and they get to choose and go to a private school or parochial school what happens to the 4000 left behind in the system. The fact is that 90 percent of America's children go to school in public schools. And there aren't enough and will be enough out to solve their problem. The only way we build the future of this country is to revalue our education system. That means a whole group of compromises. Republicans have to give up the notion that government can't make any difference at all and that there isn't a need for resources. And Democrats have to give up the notion that they should be able to get away with

automatically defending the indefensible and standing alongside practices that have long since been discredited. That's why I say let's have a system that takes the best of what happens in a public school the best of what happens in a private school the best of what happens in a parochial school and allow the local school to put in place best practices from each of those efforts and let them be accountable to people within the community with choice and competition so that ultimately the system is being decided at the local level that it's supposed to be but not by the layers of bureaucracy that 100 years of school system have put in between the decision making and the accountability. We have whole systems that are wholly unaccountable. The consequence of that and we simply have to undo it now. You protect teachers to some degree from arbitrary capricious political firing the answer is yes

and you could do that without and you can do that as we did in Massachusetts with a fair dismissal law where you you're having a fixed process for protection but you don't spend $20000 in four years in order to try to move someone that properly ought to be moved you're able to make the system work with accountability and structure. Now in the end and I summarize by saying this all of this really depends on something new happening in our country. It's a lot to talk about in a short period of time. But but this is where I come back to Charlie Vaughan and to the veterans and to that sort of early concept of what it means to serve. Something has happened in America today. Which has made the unacceptable acceptable. And where serious discussions are harder and harder to have as a consequence of sort of the the new attitude if you will about what's popular and what matters. Recently that was

underscored to me the most dramatic way by the story of what happened in a casino in Las Vegas and not in Vegas because it was in the Navy. It was somewhere in Nevada I might've been Tao. But these two young college students as you may recall were at the casino. And these parents were gambling and they lost track of it believe it or not. And so intend on gambling they lost track of their 7 year old daughter and their 7 year old daughter was found by one of these young college students who took her into the men's room into a stall where he proceeded to sexually abuse her and ultimately to murder her. But what is stunning also is that while he was doing that his friend went into the stall next door stood up on the toilet looked over in the stall wall and saw what his friend was doing and watched then went out and waited outdoors until that friend was finished.

And then together they left and when because there were so many cameras in casinos. They were quickly caught and the friend was asked what would you do. You looked over and saw this and you left. Why didn't you do something he said because he was my friend and I didn't know her. He has now gone back to the University of California Berkeley where he is a student. Notwithstanding some students protesting this notion because apparently the the leadership of that community believes that he did nothing wrong because he didn't break the law notwithstanding that he broke everybody's sense of value in this room. Now that is replicated over and over again in many different ways today in this country. And it represents to me a violent. Discrediting of what Charlie on and everybody who wore uniform everybody who cares about the real America really thinks we ought to be

thinking about and caring about this country and nothing brought that home to me recently than than seeing the movie Private Ryan which I talked to Charlie about recently because that was the story of people who saw something bigger than themselves in life you know going in and those Higgins boats knowing you're about to face those German emplacements knowing you're about to receive machine gun fire mortars knowing that you are the person next you may never take another step again but you're going to do it because it's a value that's bigger than you that stands for something more important. And so when those Higgens doors went down and those men were shot immediately or drowned or stumbled up that beach you saw the real meaning of citizen soldiers. The title of Stephen Ambrose's book that talks about the march on from Normandy to Berlin citizen soldiers. We've been fighting for a long time on this planet to give full definition to the meaning of the word citizen.

Plato and Socrates fought about it and were the first great republic since those states to have the kind of democracy and the kind of opportunity for citizenship that we have. And the question is What are we going to make of it at this important moment of time. Are we going to understand the nature of that kind of sacrifice that we're going to be a people who are willing to ask about whether or not life is just about going to work every day and making more or are we really going to try to find a way to fix the schools deal with our children you build community and give people the kind of capacity for opportunity and participation that the world expects of us and looks to us for. I think that's really the great choice now. And it's you know if I were to look out at the current generation say how many of you were willing to make that kind of sacrifice. How many of you will do something beyond going to Wall Street or getting your graduate degree and then paying off your student loans will you be part of a process that builds community.

That's the test for this country and it begins by paying attention to our children and to our schools. It's the most important task in America. For business and for government alike. And I hope you will join even further than you are already in that effort. Thank you very much. Let me throw it open to. Your. Question. We're. Going to be. Rocking. We need to get folks out of here by 9:00 is that correct. All right. We've got some time for some questions so I'll hop down and play Oprah. I'll come down too. I can start with that question that I'd like to ask Senator directly also the cards if you'd hold them up and come around great. Hear questions yes. Would you state your name and then your question. Yeah. My name is Peter Eggleston. During the early and mid 80s there was a lot of discussion about reform and education. And I remember watching the governor of Arkansas in 1985 talking

about reform in the schools. A year later I was a high school teacher in New York City. What most of us on sort of on the ground level saw was lots of tests. There's a lot of cynicism about that. How are we supposed to teach if we are doing is giving tests. There was also a lot of pressure at the time to pass students who weren't qualified because the school would lose its accreditation if I failed a three quarters of the students that should have been failed. And. Unfortunately what I've seen at least and I have to say I'm one of those students or one of those teachers who opted out of the system after about four years and I guess the question is how do we get beyond the sort of the easy fix of reform equals more test because you know obviously accountability is important but accountability is more than Regents tests and city tests and cities and PSAT is all that stuff.

So I guess that's my question I couldn't agree with you more. And I think you're sort of underscoring what I'm saying. Look here's what I think you have to do. If if if. First of all on the kids you have to institute a policy of tough love. You cannot socially promote kids. No school system should be allowed to do that. We're going to have to bear the price of breaking that cycles like breaking a horse or something you've got to. Sort of break the habit if you will. And it's. Mayor Daley is doing this in Chicago Mayor Daley took over the system last year has accepted responsibility and basically ended social promotion and said you're going to summer school and if you don't pass the test if you're not ready at the end of summer school you haven't shown the requisite level of knowledge for that particular grade. You're repeating that grade. I remember when I went through school the threat of repetition of a grade was real and I knew that I was going to

suffer the dishonor of it with my friends of not having gone on with them. That ended. I picked up the Boston Globe last week I was stunned by this story. It hasn't been a word about it. How many of you bother to get the globe up here and read it but the Globe had this story and left hand side of the page about kids refusing to do homework. You say that I was absolutely stunned that the school was stymied by the fact that kids were not doing their homework. Now if anything was more fundamental than confronting that that's it. I mean there's the kind of thing I'm talking about. What's happened to us is we started in the 1960s and 70s sort of becoming value neutral in our schools. The great thing of the time was give me value neutrality. It can't be value neutral schools. There are certain fundamental values that ought to be taught Don't lie don't cheat don't steal don't rape don't have sex and so forth. These are things that at least I think we can universally agree upon but we're not allowed

to discipline even in the school system anymore for threat that you're going to have an immediate lawsuit. And coupled with the problems of some of the quality issues and the special needs program where the federal government has let down the local communities by requiring the special needs students be taught. But at the same time not providing the 40 percent of money that we're supposed to. So all the school districts are under pressure. So we have to have a broad comprehensive approach which includes the following. We've got to attract the new teachers to the system. You have to pay more to be able to do it. You have to also provide ongoing mentoring and evaluation and training programs so people are helped through the rough edges of early teaching. You have to have the support of the school administrator to allow those teachers to teach as they think they need to with the accountability being the end product at the end of the year. Now don't let the teacher be the judge of whether they get five tests or two

tests as long as the students are able to pass the requisite level of knowledge which is not skill based. It's simply knowledge based as to whether you're prepared to move on to the next grade. Now that's the way it works in most of the best schools in the country. I took time to go visit blue ribbon schools in Massachusetts to say why is this a blue ribbon school. What works here and I did it at middle high school and elementary and every brewer in school I found. Here's the first thing that leapt out at me. There was a terrific principal and the principal was in charge and the second thing that leapt out at me was the principal had worked out a set of special relationships with the Board of Education with the school board with the teachers union and with parents. So when a teacher needed to be moved out of the system they actually moved the teacher out. They sort of worked a deal and in the end because of the curriculum changes they put in place and the sort of creative

learning experience that had been created in the school. What I found was you had essentially created a charter school within the public school system. That's what gave me the idea here essentially make every one of these schools the Blue Ribbon school. But it takes leadership to make that happen and you have to trust allowing the principal to hire certain people and be accountable. I give you an example in the hiring in Massachusetts at least and this is true in many states in the country if you don't have a master's degree and you're not a graduate of the ed system within the state so that you're certified by that system you can't teach which eliminates corporate chieftains generals from the military you may have a huge organizational skills and capacities it eliminates. I can't go teach a year. Elie Wiesel from Boston University. Doris Kearns Goodwin Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian couldn't teach me. This is ridiculous. But you go to Philips Exeter nearby and go to St. Paul School which I had the privilege to attend.

You go to some of these other places you've got kids fresh out of Harvard or wherever teaching without any of that gobbledygook through the certification process. So what I'm saying is we've got to break this institutional monopoly that we have and create some energy in the system through competition. You're businesspeople competitions the best thing in the world. It holds people accountable. And if parents begin to choose Well I want to go to the Philips school or I want to go to the you know rosewood school or whatever it is people are going to say why isn't that school good and you're going to begin to create energy in the system. Right now we're just stuck in the mud with a system that's top down heavy and not producing enough. Now you're lucky in New Hampshire you are testing third in the nation in your essay. He's got about I think it's about a 5 12 and 5 18 or 7 is doing very well in a lot of regards. And your child poverty level in New Hampshire is at only 10 percent compared to child poverty for the nation that's 25

percent. So you you've managed notwithstanding some of the difficulties that exist here in funding to do a very good job. We need to replicate some of that in other places and liberate people to do better. Public probably because the party of which you are a leader has consistently opposed many of the reforms you were speaking about this morning. Well I disagree with that. I disagree with the premise. I think that there are a good number of people in the Democratic Party who are coming to the realization that we need to think differently. And you know change is always hard to come by but change is what is. You know life is all about. And I think that our party needs if it's going to be a majority party and if it's going to earn the right to lead the country our party has to respond on the issue of education. I may not have all the right solutions but I know that we've got to begin a different dialogue about it and that dialogue means talking honestly about the problems.

If your kids aren't learning and they're not if they're coming out of school and capable of reading and they are if they're going into the marketplace without the skills we need we can ask ourselves some tough questions. But I also know that the Republican solution to it is nonexistent. Just talking about a voucher program is not a solution. Schools need computers. Schools need guidance counselors. I went into the Jeremiah Burke school of Boston before it lost its accreditation 950 inner city kids. One guidance counselor teachers Xeroxing materials to give them something to study. They didn't have books. Now my party better start asking itself why is that a fact. Why is there eight thousand dollars being spent on a student in the city of New York and only $40 getting to them in books. And we're not willing to ask those tough questions then we can offer leadership. So I'm going to be a Democrat for a whole host of reasons that I think are in touch with the needs of this country. But I'm going to be a Democrat who tells the truth and talks about the real

changes we need in our political in our schools. And I think we can build a coalition. I went to Bob Chase of the NEA and I talked to the folks in our teacher's union in Massachusetts they embrace much of what I've said. Much of what I've said is something they've been fighting for for a long time. So I think there's a compromise. And what I'm offering and I think it's a very important one and their question. Question. Are there questions. Yes. Again cipher this one Senator what is your current thinking on school vouchers. As I said I think vouchers have the opportunity to work for for a small number of kids who get them. And indeed it saves them from the peril of whatever system they might be in. So they could choose to go to parochial school or a private school and they will get a better education. The problem is as I said a little bit earlier I don't it doesn't

go far enough. It's not a solution it's an avoidance of the real problem. The real problem is how do you fix the public school system which educates 90 percent of the children in America. And I believe that vouchers are simply ultimately sort of you know two to one degree they can be a kind of lever they can be a kick because the more currency they gain the more of the other system may feel threatened. But that's not the ideal way to approach what ought to be a consensus you can reach about the choices you should make in the other system. The real saving of the school system of America is to save the system that educated the last generations of this country to make us what we are which is the public school system and to bring it back. It is the great equalizer of this country. Public schools notwithstanding that so many of us may have had other opportunities in life. I am a huge believer in providing for the best opportunity you can. It's the best way you are going to make

real the notion of melting pot of democracy and of providing the kind of opportunity that all of this country needs to have and we need to get about the business of making that work. Senator another question came from a gentleman on our head table. He asks Why is there so much resistance to John Silver's idea of a mandated high school exam to receive a diploma. I think it may be more in the manner of the offering and in the overall picture. Again if you made it part of an overall comprehensive approach it is something that might be acceptable in certain school systems as an option. It certainly would be embraced in the best practices concept that I've put forward in the American education act. After all many other countries I mean France has the baccalaureate in many other countries have that fundamental exam. Now theirs becomes rather pejorative. That's the decider of whether or not you go on to university it all becomes

difficult. But I personally do not have a very significant problem with an exam. I mean many of us had what were called comprehensives and you had to take a comprehensive set of exams at the end of college to determine whether or not in your major or you were sufficiently knowledgeable to merit the degree. I don't personally have a problem with that at all. I think it's more the way in which it's been proposed and how it's been worked out. That's been the problem. Other questions. Yes. In the back. There is the speaker of the House will have on the U.S. government. Well he'll be one effect on the government and one effect on politics obviously the Democrats lost a great target. On the government. Look let me say something in fairness to Newt. I got along with Newt very well and I know some people may be confounded by that. I thought he was very provocative and thoughtful person in many ways who offered some.

Some sometimes outrageous but nevertheless you know important ways of challenging orthodoxy. And so I value that. I really do. And while he did make himself into a kind of political target I thought that contribution to the American political dialogue was actually very important. And so I look at the election of Jesse Ventura. Some people snicker at that. I don't I thought that was a very serious event. And I think politicians in both parties at their peril would be dismissive of what happened in Minnesota what happened in Minnesota was currency orthodoxy was rejected and the sort of traditional gobbledygook of American politics was put on hold in my judgment and just refreshing straight talk. Was ratified. And I've long believed them. I think many of you know my position on campaign finance reform and other things I tried to

suggest that's what we need. You know we need some people to say things and sometimes to say you know I don't know I really don't know the answer to that question but I'm willing to try to find out. And I think that that we need to build a new trust with our fellow citizens in order to give them a sense that Washington is about something more than just power and party. And that's what's turning people off. I mean somebody asked me the other day you know do you think Americans are sort of inherently disinterested in politics. I said I think it's that a lot of politicians aren't saying anything interesting to them to think about that. Senator John Kerry you've given us a lot of food for thought. I'm getting the word that we need you out of it. I got no food. I will make sure you get breakfast. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. Nice. You. Thank. You. Thank. You. Very speedy. Check. On free trade and we made this

again. Who. Made it. You. Get me just this. So isn't like that either. I mean we're rolling this is we're all just using mind to get out. It's. Good. To. Check it you know we seem to be reducing the price and messages Well every segment correct. I guess we've got to see that somebody is going to give us returns. I've seen enough to make me think anyone has said I know I'm not an expert on that one but I'm going to try to find out more about it. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Good morning gentlemen. Well time wise but substantive wise no. What do you think are talking to people. I'm going to meet with some folks now here. I need to get out to a few other states that I haven't had time to get to. I've been unfortunately really burdened by the debt issue and we're trying to get rid of that and the next you know period of time so taking some time you. Know I knew we never targeted eliminating it. Our target was somewhere you know in the good several hundred thousands of dollars at this one event. We have other events that are taking place in other parts of the country. What it all adds up to I can tell you today but I think what I said was I want to get it down to a negligible amount to an amount that's manageable from an interest point of view and then we can knock it off pretty fast. Well as of June I had 1.2 million. I can't tell you what it is today or after Monday come see me after Monday.

All right. Well I think it's always important and I think that I mean just like Mike Dukakis or Paul Tsongas you want to have as many of your own state's political leaders you'll never have them all. But in my case clearly Senator Kennedy is very important and I would not. You know I'd be totally disingenuous if I said otherwise he's. He's a leader he's a national leader is my senior colleague he's respected enormously in our state. And I think it would be very difficult to be at full measure without that kind of support. And that's an honest answer. Well they never really get that involved. I mean historically none of them supported Gary Hart. None of them supported the guy. I mean that's you know none of them supported Clinton or a few did. Maybe but it's always Washington is a. Safety community. I don't look to that for the answers and they see that across the president. Now you are in New Hampshire now.

Super Tuesday. How are you going to make your decision to where you go where are you where you put your research. I haven't gotten that far yet. That is clearly one of the nuts and bolts issues that has to be properly vetted in order to make a judgment. And I have some people analyzing that and I have not yet had a discussion about it. Clearly the compartmentalization the sort of truncating of the process changes. And I think we all need to understand how. I think it's for the worse in terms of the country. I don't know if it's for the worse for me politically but it's certainly for the worse for the country because I think there's a huge value to going into living rooms to having people really get a sense of who you are as a person being able to meet people talk to them personalize politics is one of the great things in this country and for us to keep reducing that and and. Creating more opportunity for money and more opportunity for soundbite diminishes the

American political magic if you will. I think it's a shame. Why are you making. Well I've said as I think most people have said I mean the next months are pretty key. I think because of the truncation because of the problems I've had. Spending time and on getting rid of the last campaign. I haven't been able to do as much visiting as I've wanted so I might stretch it a little bit into next year. But I think the imperatives are you've got to get going at some point in order not to be left in the dust. What might he be thinking about. Well I don't want to be overly specific but obviously around the turn of the year January February somewhere in there you better be going or you're not going to be able to put it together. We're looking at that right now Joe. We're talking to some folks in Iowa. I do want to try to get out there and I am going out to California as in December just to chat with people. No no big public things.

But what is that. I didn't know they had any status. People who are interested I think people are a little dazed still as a result of the elections just having occurred and people are sorting out a lot of things. But there seems to be there seems to be sort of a curiosity about possibilities. I don't find doors slamming shut. But again I need to measure a lot of things and I just haven't had the time yet to fully measure all of them. If I were to run my wife would be active and public. She was in the Senate race she said you know we've talked a little bit about it we haven't talked a lot. We haven't had a serious conversation but we've had we couldn't help but have had I mean obviously a number of chats about it. I mean she's very direct you know extraordinarily

involved capable person and she has her views about you know how to spend one's time effectively. And I think some of her fears are the political process doesn't allow for ideas to be really vetted properly move. That's why she turned down running for the Senate. But on the other hand she supported me enormously in my race. And if we were to decide which would be a decision it would be a we effort. Well there's always an effect. I mean if things are on the up side people get an upside turn George Bush did from Ronald Reagan. If they're on the downside Jerry Ford got a downturn from Richard Nixon. So those are historical things over which you have no control. And I don't expect to worry about those things at all. That is not entering into my thoughts about whether or not I might run the heart

whether or not I would run is on the issues that I want to make the the agenda the things that I think matter to the country that I can express in a way that others may not be. And secondly the capacity to be able to be successful in the period of time we have to make that happen and I have to weigh those. And that's what I'm willing to learn about education which is by my position on New Hampshire is clearly look it's inconsistent for me to say you ought to run this at the local level and you ought to make your best choices and then come in and tell New Hampshire what they ought to do. New Hampshire needs to decide and will decide for itself. And the last thing they want is outside interference. The governor is doing a terrific job in my judgment of pulling people together to make a best choice about how to proceed. I think now that she has the Senate that she can work with that will help her to be able to do that.

What I want to do is offer her and other governors in the country A assistance and help that will liberate them to be able to make some of these choices. The program I have introduced introducing nationally will be of enormous help to New Hampshire because we will provide additional financial assistance for New Hampshire's local school districts to make the choices they want to make. And I think most people I've talked to are very excited about that. I will incidentally have bipartisan support on this when we introduce it may maybe that we'll announce it in December. Mike don't have any. Well let me speak to that very directly. Fair question I raised more money than anyone in the United States Senate in my race for in 1996 I raised ten million dollars. If that were a race for presidency with matching money that's 20 million dollars. But I've actually raised a lot more. But the problem was in 1996 the Senate schedule kept me voting in Washington

while the debate schedule we had nine one hour televised debates. Every time we had a break in the Senate I was back in Massachusetts debating. So I couldn't go to California Texas Florida places where you have to raise money. I still raised more money than anyone else in the United States Senate. Afterwards we were tired. Everybody was tired. We did not even start trying to raise money until six months into it. I raised almost a million dollars in the last six months and I am confident I will raise about a million dollars in this last six months and I will report well over when you pay the interest and the staff over two and a half million dollars. And out of cycle for old money this is 96 money. I think that is a tremendous accomplishment. And if all my people were free who hadn't maxed out to me for $2000 were free to give today my base is 14 to 16 million dollars or more which is one of the largest fundraising bases in the United States Senate. I also have the largest direct mail with the exception maybe of

Barbara Boxer. But I don't take PAC money. That's another reason I only do it through individual donations of $1000 or less. I've often said I don't know if I can continue to do that because it's becoming more and more time consuming. But for the moment that's the way I've been able to do my politics. I'm very proud of what I do. Has become less and bigger you no on the contrary I think New Hampshire becomes many ways more important because the time frame has been compressed post-New Hampshire and if you look at Gary Hart or others in the past. There was an opportunity for for Vice President Mondale to sort of recover post after. If you go straight from New Hampshire to California you're going to need money. But it's clearly whatever you come out of New Hampshire with in terms of energy it will carry over. So I think New Hampshire is very important and one has to really make

some other judgments about the other places. How do you feel when your way is that to do to make the race he does say that's not what you say saying no she wasn't saying that she was. No she was saying that what got reported. Well she now she said she was asked how she felt about that. She said sort of ridiculous. I mean that's her expression and she later clarified that to Brian McGrory of The Globe making it very clear that what she was really doing was talking about just the you know the hurdles you have to get over on a personal level to be able to decide to do this and that many people would look at it and say Ugh you know that's a personal sacrifice. I want to do I think she was expressing publicly in a very honest way. The the the difficulties of American politics today that is very different from suggesting that she is not a gutsy you know dedicated person who wouldn't tackle it if that was the decision that she came to.

But her initial reaction is like a lot of people and there's a part of me that would react the exact same way. There's a huge giving up that's involved and I think you have to really think about that very hard. You make quite a point if you don't think about that. I'm not sure you're qualified to do it because you're not in touch with a lot of reality. You spoke several times about Charlie. The background. This is a very courageous man. Yes. Yet the kind of values that Charlie might be being denigrated ways by your own leader of your own party. How do you square. Well I'm not sure what you mean by that. Well I mean I don't think if you asked Charlie one he'd be appalled by some of what's coming out of Washington. Well I think most of America is but that doesn't mean they don't support some of the policies. I think that's the great dichotomy here. America spoke in the election. Look America elected President

Clinton twice they elected him full well in 1990 for 96. So I don't think that I don't buy into that question. The values I'm talking about about Charlie Vaughn and their values of public citizenship values of involvement in community caring about something bigger than yourself being involved for your you know sacrificing something in order to build the country. And I think Bill Clinton believes in those things and I think Bill Clinton has fought for those things in his policies. And America is drawing a distinction clearly between those things you fight for and some of the personal issues that have surrounded him. And I think giving