Vietnam: A Television History; Interview with Tom Lyons

Beginning with Ted Kennedy's closest friend in the United States Senate Senator Christopher Dodd Senator Dodd spoke from this. Senator Dodd spoke from this very podium at the memorial service for Senator Kennedy and he told the story that though nearing his end of his life Ted Kennedy was one of the first to call him as he was recuperating last spring from surgery. Quipping quote between going through treatment for prostate cancer or attending townhall meetings on the Obama health care plan I think you made the right choice. And Wright Edelman grew up in the segregated town of Bennet's Ville North Carolina and later became the first African-American woman to be admitted to the bar and Mississippi where she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund office in Jackson in the mid 1960s. In 1968 she was recruited by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. to be counsel to the Poor People's March and in 1973 she established the Children's Defense Fund which has become the most powerful voice ever created for children. Mark Greenberg is the deputy assistant secretary of

policy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services before joining the Obama administration. He directed the Georgetown University Center on poverty inequality and public policy. During his career Mr. Greenberg has written extensively on issues relating to welfare reform and poverty reduction strategies. Shirley Sagawa has been called the founding mother of the national service movement. She began her career working with Senator Kennedy as the chief counsel for youth policy for the Senate Labor Committee. She went on to serve as deputy chief of staff to First Lady Hillary Clinton and was the first chief operating officer for the Corporation for National Service in Americorp. She has a new book coming out this April which she is dedicating to Senator Kennedy titled The American way to change how national service and volunteers are transforming America. Our moderator this afternoon is Christina Paxon dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University a member of the Princeton faculty since 1986. She's the founding director of the center of health and well-being at the Wilson School a renowned expert on the

relationship between economic status and health outcomes and a senior editor of the future of children a policy journal published by the school and the Brookings Institute. Thank you Tom very very much and let me thank all of you for coming out on this glorious day. I'm glad they drew the blinds behind you so you would know the day you are missing here. It's been seven months since the sun has shined in New England. I think so are delighted to see so many of you here and and I'm particularly honored to be a very very junior partner in this wonderful team of experts you're going to hear from this afternoon. And to be back on this stage only a few months ago as Tom pointed out to be here for the wonderful memorial service today here at the library. And so it's a bittersweet moment to be back on this forum and in this room. But what a wonderful idea. And I want to commend the library for hosting these forums to not only talk about Ted Kennedy's legacy and the Kennedy legacy his brothers as well and their commitment to these issues but as importantly to talk about what they would be saying about today and where they want to see it

go forward. Teddy was always thinking of the future and I can tell you even in his waning days of life last summer and the meetings I've had with him stopping to visit him in Hyannis was anxious to know what was happening with healthcare what was going to happen with elementary and secondary education. Always looking ahead to wonder what the next step would be and how we can improve the quality of life for one out of every four Americans who under the age of 18. Now what Tom didn't tell you in the deduction is of course I've also announced my retirement from the United States Senate come next January. So my status is diminishing a bit here as you might sense. Lately I've discovered the only value I had in the Senate was I was able to achieve sledding on Capitol Hill grounds from the Capitol Hill police. So my influence is waning here in the process. I was reminded John McCormack was once asked when he announced his retirement from a singing career at the height of that career. Someone asked why are you quitting he said because I'd rather be asked Why are you quitting then why haven't you quit on the way. So today I'll be talking not only about about what I believe.

Teddy's accomplishments and what his goals were and the motivations that he brought with such a degree of passion and interest in the subject matter. And then obviously to talk about current events and where we are and stepping forward as well. And again I can't tell you what an honor it is to be with Shirley and Mark and Marian who with whom I've bonded so many years ago I don't do anything without Marian Wright Edelman blessing when it comes to children's issues in the. Press. And so anything she says I'll just endorse right now ahead of time. Rather than have to face as he comes along. So. And let me just conclude with this to you because I've thought a lot about this I would often ask because we had such a wonderful friendship. Teddy and I did and over the years that his commitment to these issues was just so deep. It went beyond the normal policy discussions the Monday morning staff meetings. I can't tell you how many occasions sailing with him off the coast of. Hyannis and meio or other places with him where no one else was there. There was no audience to

hear his remarks. There was no no group to convince of the legitimacy of his points how deeply he felt about these issues. It was not something he took lightly. It was part of his being and every conversation he engaged in almost without exception. And so it's worth while we talk on this subject matter. I don't think there's any other subject matter that binds all of us together. Whatever differences we talk about whatever divisions may exist in our country today. I think every single one of us not only in this room this afternoon but across this state across our country if we were asked one thing one thing that we all shared in common were part of our hopes and dreams. It would be for our children or your grandchildren that they'd have a better life. In a sense it's poignant that I'm here this afternoon. I wasn't sure I was going to make it here. I'm a late bloomer in the Father business. I have a five year old and an eight year old who's to say I'm the only candidate for office that got mail from AARP and diaper services. I have this very. Broad reach here along the way. And now my five year old ended up in the emergency room at Children's Hospital last night in Washington.

It's March and this road a virus is going around and spent 24 or 48 hours pretty sick. And we called the pediatrician and recommended after a while that she probably ought to get to an emergency room to get hydrated because of the significant dehydration. So about midnight last night we arrived at the Children's Hospital emergency room on North Capitol Street in Washington and walking to that emergency room seeing it packed with young children. For the most part didn't have Blue Cross Blue Shield policy. Many of us would not be there at all because the fear that if they went they couldn't afford to pay for it to begin with and I couldn't help but think is after about 20 minutes Christina was being hydrated she's doing well she's still there this morning getting back on her feet. But I never paused for a single second wondering if I could pay for it or not whether or not she'd be able to get that kind of treatment that she needed and I couldn't help but think not only the children who is showing up very late in the process were in that room because it was that kind of an emergency or how many families in the District of Columbia that evening who

had a child who was dehydrated wondering whether or not they were going to get better. And also fearful that they'd never be able to find the help and support they needed for that child. I don't care what your politics are. I don't care what you eat where you come from there's not a single one of us here that believes that that child in the District of Columbia or in Boston Massachusetts or Hartford Connecticut ought to be ever denied that kind of help and support that family needs at a critical moment like that this great nation of ours needs to do better. We're getting better at this but we need to do more. So today. Today let's let's talk about the things where we are and how we can chart this road ahead. The fond memory of a great great advocate. Ted Kennedy so thank you all for the invitation to be. Thank you. That was really really good news for me. Yes good. OK. So am very happy to be able to talk to the four of you today and what I thought we would do is we

would have a conversation until about three o'clock and then we'll take some questions from the audience. What I want to do is focus most of our time on talking about where we are retile policy and where we're going in the future. But I thought we might want to start by talking a little bit about what you have done and how it relates to Senator Kennedy's work. So I thought I would start with Marianne and you know you have a lot in common with Senator Kennedy and that you've been a champion for poor in your entire career. And there's a quote that I read that you said when you were looking back over the Children's Defense Fund 35 year history you noted it was quote Born to give voice to those who had either been seen or heard. All of America's children especially poor minority and disabled children left behind in our rich neighborhood that rich nation. And I was hoping you could help us understand what you meant there. And talk a little bit about what you meant motivated you to take on advocacy and how the how the

work of ZDF sort of paralleled what Senator Kennedy was doing. Well I grew up in a poor rural county that is still poor and rural with a 20 percent unemployment right now. But I was born with parents and community people who try to live their faith. And so poverty was everywhere. But we always knew that it was our responsibility to try to change that. And I I have a passion about health care because I saw him when I was a child or an accident on the highway where we lived and I was between a white truck driver and migrant family in a migrant family. I saw them come and see the white truck driver was not. Hurt and he drove away leaving the very poor migrants on the highway. I was six or seven but those kinds of things sear yourself through. I lost my three houses down neighbor who was living with his grandmother who stepped on a nail. My mother had no money. Didn't know about this. And

so he died at 12. I lost another playmate who we didn't have places to play or to swim. And so he was just swim in a local creek which was not very far away and and little him and jumped off the bridge and. Broke his neck and that in the end the swimming place where I now know the mini and back by black communities that's where we fished. But it was also I learned later was where the hospital's sewage outlet was not was. And so my childhood shaped I knew my passion as well as my faith shaped by passion. My father was a Baptist minister but they believed in the creed that whenever you see a need you're try to respond. And so they tried to do that and in many many ways but I could never bear as a child being excluded from anything. And I can't bear seeing any child excluded from anything. And the poor segregated schools did not have an equal education. I was lucky I had middle class educated parents who had books in the home. But I

saw the children who didn't. And so that shaped my life and I so I was driven by faith and by the example of people who cared and try to live out their faith my home my community folk. And while the outside world told me as a black girl I wasn't worth much I didn't believe it because my parents said it wasn't so my teacher said it was and so my preacher said it wasn't so and we were raised to change the things that we did not like and when I went off to Spelman College there was Dr. King there was Dr. Race and we had compulsory chapel which I hate it. But the first thing I did when I became chair of the Spelman Boris re-institute compulsory chapel so that they would have to learn what we thought was important because those great speakers probably re-instill to to be but those of us who have much of an obligation to get back into service. But the bottom line is that I've always felt very blessed to have been at the intersection of great people and great historic events where we had an outlet to change these things and you know Robert Kennedy came in my life

during that period of time the Kennedys were part of that life. And so and I think that we were driven. I think by some common family raring to serve. But I also think we're also driven by faith and I remember going to one of Teddy's many hearings on the minimum wage because he pushed forever to try to complete to constantly improve the minimum wage and to index it so that it could be livable. But I had quoted Matthew 25th 25 and I had read Matthew 25 for many many many many times. It's amazing how sloppily we are in our reading and I always thought it was an injunction for each of us personally but somehow I finally read the words more clearly and saw that there was an injunction to the nations of the world who recall before the throne of God to say how did they comport with his mandate to feed the hungry God's money to feed the hungry or heal the sick or whatever. And he just teared up. I mean I really hope and I realize that sort of goodness. But that relentless passion the the the

the the absolute commitment to trying to make life better for the most vulnerable to speak for them. Was driven by faith and driven by family and driven by service. And so I felt a great bond and what a great loss that voice is today. Thanks. You know passion is very important but you also have to be effective. And I think we all know that Senator Kennedy was very effective. And Charlie you worked with him for many years and I think his memorial service many who didn't know the senator were very surprised by the tribute paid by Senator Hatch. He was a Republican senator from Utah. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how Senate Senator Kennedy worked with people from across the aisle and what it was like to work with him when he was doing that. That is so true and something that I think we need badly right now. And I'm

worried that we've lost that sense of it's always possible to find common ground. And I worked for Senator Kennedy in the late 80s and early 90s and in the great bulk of his unbelievable career I feel honored to have occupied this tiny little part. And I just finished reading his act autobiography on my Kindle and the years that I worked for him were like at Pere 77 percent of the way through the book so I realized that. That having worked for somebody who had been there you know almost since I was born and had you know been through so many fights and knew there are times you stand on principle and fight because you have to no matter whether you're going to lose or win and there are times when you you look somebody in the eye and say that we both want to do this for kids and find a way around those things that divide you. And I was lucky enough to work on a handful of bills that actually were co-sponsored by Senator Kennedy and Senator Hatch one of

them was Senator Dodd took the lead on the child development block grant. And that was I think one of the most important legacies of the labor community of that time. And I also worked on the national service legislation. Every bill that's passed. But the first one was in 1990 and it was a demonstration bill and that was an interesting time because the idea had just come forward. I was trying to bubble up by the more sort of moderate and conservative Democrats that thought maybe we should get rid of financial aid and tell everybody they have to serve in order to get financial aid. And Senator Kennedy knew from his gut that that was not a good thing that this was going to put higher education out of reach of many people who wouldn't be able to do that. And yet the idea inspired him. Senator Hatch also was inspired by that idea because he was a Mormon and had done national service as a through his church. And so there was this sort of spark of opportunity there to find common ground and then a third a third major player entered

the scene. In 1988 president the first President Bush who also came to sort of the topic with a sense of real personal. Public service he was from a family of service. And so the three of them were able to sit down over many many many months with many other players too numerous to mention and say we really want to make this a country that's about serving others and that we solve problems by taking action and we don't just want the government to solve everything that there are things that people need to do. And the fact that they were able to start at a place where they had a common interest made it possible to work through all kinds of ridiculous policy conflicts including how much money whether there would be full time stipend and service whether there would be higher education benefits linked to all kinds of very divisive issues. And yet at the end of the day we were able to see the passage of the National Service Act of 1990 which was the forerunner for Americorp. And the forerunner runner for the recently

passed and signed by President Obama Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act. I wish that we could see more policy makers like Senator Dodd and others who can say this is what we want to get done for the American people and not this is what I'm going to do to position my party to win the next election. You want to comment on what you don't know. This is a great subject matter because it's up there. Today there's so much of this discussion obviously the health care debate having been through this and how we manage the bill for Senator Kennedy and the Labor Committee all last winter and spring and summer completing the action in July 16th in fact Teddy was so competitive on everything. I mean that wasn't the subject matter he wasn't competitive about. And and I held the longest my longest mark in the history of the Health Committee was the mark of the health committee. 50 percent of the bill that we were responsible for went on for I think we had almost 70 hours 23 sessions. There were 800 amendments filed to the

bill. We actually consider 300 amendments on that bill over the space of time. Hundred and Sixty one of the amendments actually was offered by my friends on the Republican side of the aisle that were adopted as part of the bill. But I'll we get the money about six o'clock in the morning of July 17th the day after the 16th I picked up the phone at 6:00 o'clock this is last July. So we were told about a month away from Teddy's passing and this booming voice on the end of the phone that our committee won. We were the first committee to mark of a bill. First of all he just one of his committee was first to get the bill out of the committee. But having watched. Senator Kennedy tell you work at this over the years and it always struck me as somewhat amusing that people never figured this out. How we did this and how we managed to get as much legislative product out of his committees and what he did and Shirleys certainly hit on this is it wasn't that Teddy necessarily had these great bosom buddy relationships with these other people. They were usually the ranking Republican member of the committee or the chairman of the committee when he was the ranking

Democrat. And invariably the Republican leadership from time to time would send what they thought was the most difficult member they had to be Teddy's partner. And the idea of kind of slowing him down over there in that committee and what they didn't understand was he would go to whoever it was and say Tell me what you're interested in. And they'd said Well I'm interested in the following. Well let's work on that together and all of a sudden that person who went over to try and stop it from getting anything done found they had a great partner. And that became the theme to the subject matter of what they worked on that wasn't always done that way. But he taught me early on you'd never do anything of any significance in the Senate of the House of Representatives is different because they are the majority rules. The rules are written specifically to guarantee that a majority prevails. The Senate rules are exactly the antithesis of that. The rights of a minority including a minority of one. We learned with Jim Bunning last couple of weeks it could have a lot more sway. And so you've got to if you're going to get a gun of any significance of any significance you've got to find a partner on the other side to help you through it. And so going back and other

things and we'll talk maybe later about a point I have when Orrin Hatch and I actually started the bill on the child care development block grants the family medical leave. I did with Kit Bond and Dan Coats did premature births. We had an infant screening with the Lamar Alexander I get on every single bill. I've had a partner and that was Teddy's less no matter how good your ideas are. You don't have a partner reach out and find out where there is common ground. Don't give up on the principle but you're going to have to work that way if you're going to achieve anything of any great worth in marriage. So it's a it's a lesson it's been lost and it's more difficult. I said the other night I'm working on this financial services bill with Bob Corker new Tennessee senator from Tennessee and it's getting a lot of attention that he and I are working trying to work on a compromise. And I said him the other night you know I want to tell you something. This is getting big. It's stunning to me it's news. Ten years ago 15 years ago this was routine. There were 30 or 40 members doing what we're doing. And it was just how you did things in order to get things moving along for the country and that could be the subject

matter of another meeting here on how you manage to get back to that day when you start trying to find out that common ground that Shirley talked about. Mark could you tell us something about which you're Senator Kennedy's accomplishments you think especially important given what your work is and what you focus on. I think it's extremely hard to single out just one. Yeah. And. And reverencing work as one. But let me say that I think what's what's so striking about the work that Senator Kennedy did over his career is just the sheer range of initiatives you've heard about a set of them already around national service around child care around the minimum wage. His work on the Americans with Disabilities who's worked throughout his career on health care the accomplishments of the creation of the Children's Health Insurance

Program which again in partnership with Senator Hatch in moving that forward. What's what's so notable across his career and then and actually particularly note if pretty thinking about the last couple of years which did not yet become law. But his his work around paid sick leave for four families and those workers who paid sick leave and his seeking legislation to establish a requirement that employers provide it. It was something that me that did not get enacted into law but has played out this I think it had enormous war across the country in spurring people's consideration of this type of issue and in the support for working parents involved in. What you know what I would say is as one and there is a much longer list. And what I would say is that working across the broad range of

his career. It's both the commitment to children also. And I think this is fundamental to a strategy around child poverty. What's also was notable throughout was his commitment to employment his recognition that addressing employment for parents and indeed for everybody was central to a strategy for addressing poverty. Viewing that is really the touchstone of work. And so his attention began around the minimum wage around labor law around civil rights enforcement around individuals with disabilities and helping promote their involvement and support for people who went into work. And I think the last thing I would say is that while as we do here while we can talk about each of the individual pieces of legislation you know what was also crucial the was the fact that he both focused on the individual pieces

and focused on the broad themes and emphasized a broader vision for where the nation needed to go. And it was something that I think was both important in the Senate and important to people who was in him around the country. Mark said because it's a part of the strategy. Was to you because I think he did have a comprehensive view about how you should end child poverty. But he knew you could do it all at once and that you had to see the whole thing. But then there are many doors in which you go through it and you've named a number of those door because if you're going to deal with child poverty you have to make sure the parents children and families that the parents had a decent job. And the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit supplemented that he understood the importance of a safety net for those who did work but could not make ends meet and that included things like health care and child care and Head Start. Chris worked on with him an awful lot so he went at it in many many pieces but I think it was all within the context of a coherent comprehensive whole and you kept trying to spread

those rules and make them bigger. And so you see the impact he had in working with some of has had an early education. He understood that education was the ultimate ticket for breaking in a generational cycle of poverty and he was really an extraordinarily strong voice and No Child Left Behind was disappointed didn't get all the funding it wanted but tried again to get something on the books. And so the early education the health care of the the ways in which you can sort of make sure that parents could get what they need in a variety of ways your disability so we came at it through many groups. And over time it will add up to what I hope will be a coherent strategy to end child poverty in this nation in our lifetime. Why don't we shift gears on that and talk about what that strategy might look like. And I think it's good to talk about where we are going forward. Marian you have written that I mean I think the first one of the first things to think about is

why do we care so much about this topic it seems obvious probably to many people in the room but you've written that child poverty costs our country hundreds of billions of dollars in lost productivity every year and I was hoping you could elaborate a bit on that because we talk that's just unbelievable to me that we're sitting here in the richest nation on earth with a GDP of 14 trillion dollars talking about why we should end child poverty. No but. Great. Question. Because it's the right thing to do because we say we believe in certain things like a level playing field. I mean it's inherent in what we say we value Americans too because we that it's cheaper. We need to change. Frame the debate about how is it we can afford to live in child poverty how we cannot afford not to end child poverty. And every year we do have all these children going about their very basic needs loses according to Cannes and others. And a recent study by the Center for American Progress and one that we did earlier

with Bob so you're talking about a half trillion dollars in foregone productivity every year we let all these children not sort of get what they need in terms of education. Third if you look at the data prevention and early intervention and the cost effectiveness of seeing that our children immunized and get preventive health care to treat a child the primary care setting in Houston Texas is going to be 100 going to 11 or 12 hours a day you go with an I'm treated as attached to the emergency room. You're talking about $7000 is dumb not to have primary care and health problems. They're. Not educating our children. I mean states are spending on average three times more per prisoner than they are per pupil in public schools. That's really a stupid investment policy we've made. Every child out there the way to reading and writing. I am now getting my I got my Medicare card this year and I want to have a strong social security system.

And so we as you know we really need to think about what this has got to home for all of us in terms of letting our children be the poorest age group in America. No other industrialized country does this. Think about the implications of our competitiveness in the future. When a majority of all of our children of all races income groups cannot read or do math at grade level in fourth eighth or 12th grade if they haven't already dropped out of school and that 80 percent over 80 percent of our black and Hispanic children cannot read or do math at grade level and for eighth or 12th grade we haven't dropped out. And you know we're going to be a majority minority nation soon and we like these black and brown children of these poor children we're going to need them to be working for us rather than us working to maintain them. And it's the most fundamental commonsense issues and so I hope that we can begin to you know talk about the fact that you know poverty cost us in so many ways that cost

us and our deepest values but it cost us money. It cost us I think in public safety. I am just so worried about this cradle to prison pipeline that is suddenly one in three black boys who's 8 years old the date a prison when 17 black girls this is the this is this is the new American apartheid and we must begin to wake up and see that our children our best investment and our failure to invest in them is going to be our. I'm I'm convinced it's our moral and economic Achilles heel it's going to cripple the country. But. You know right now if you look over the last decade between 18 and 20 percent of children are in poverty is as measured given Kering current methods and I know most people don't sit up and think about poverty measurement as being the most exciting action of the day. But I actually think it's quite important. And Senator died last August you introduced the measuring American poverty act which was developed that better poverty Niger. And just last week the Commerce Department declared that it would

introduce such a new definition in the fall. So I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about the bill and why it would help children then. Mark I was hoping you could follow up and talk a little bit about it as well. Well. Thank you Chris and Mark really has done a great job on this as well. But it's one of those things that you wonder why it's taken this long. I mean where we're relying on on a I think I remember the woman's name Molly. Maleo Sharansky back in the 50s or 60s was a relatively low level bureaucrat. I'm sure a very fine person who tried to come up with a formula to determine actually what the numbers were both based on incomes and cost and what she relied on primarily 50 years ago which we've been relying on for 50 years is whenever incomes were and then primarily relying on things like food and those days food consumed about a third of a person's income. In the 1950s early 60s today in the 70s. That cost it's housing and other factors. But the formula hasn't changed

and so put it bluntly we've been trying to get statutorily to change that formula so you can actually get a far better reading. It doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be producing more people in poverty it's just a more accurate reflection of the numbers that we're confronting out there. And that's why measuring America's poverty this legislation is designed to do it. The good news is you know you don't have to pass a bill to get something done on every occasion. This case we have an administration in town who gets it. People like Mark who understands this has forgotten more about the subject matter than Oliver. But I've picked up on this and I'm going to apply in 2011 and term determining actually the numbers we're talking about and the numbers are critically important not just because it's a headline or an applause line someplace but rather it allows us then formulations of education of health care all these other matters housing issues to get an accurate reading so that we can determine appropriately what levels of support are needed in order to give people a chance to reach that growth that we're all seeking for them. And the numbers are again and Marion is hit on them I mean they're stunning we've seen a 12

percent increase in poverty just during this difficult time and their recession produced numbers that just in this in this difficult economic time to give you an idea. We're watching graduation rates and high school go from 95 percent to 80 percent in this window. We're watching a 30 percent decline in earning power of that family in poverty and it's about five hundred billion dollars a year. That's it. Round number round number of what what are childhood poverty cost us in this country in terms of actual costs and then lack of growth potential for those individuals children coming along. So the numbers if you're not moved by by the ethics of it or the morality of it and if you're only moved by economics it's just as clear as anything this is a matter that has to be addressed of all the reasons very inside it. But to get good accurate data is absolutely critical and that's what we try to do with measuring America's poverty act. So thanks for mentioning can follow up that. Sure. So so as Senator Dodd indicates there are many

concerns with the existing official measure of poverty or limitations in it. One is the fact that the the the what are known as the thresholds of how much income you have to have to be considered for that. Those were established in the 1960s that have really only been adjusted for inflation since then and a second kind of concern with the existing measure is that it doesn't reflect a lot of things that really affect the of the disposable income the actual income that families have to meet their basic needs. So for example it doesn't affect it does reflect the fact that people owe taxes or that they may benefit from tax credits. It doesn't reflect the fact that if you have out-of-pocket medical expenses then that impacts how much money you have left for food and clothing and shelter. It doesn't reflect childcare

costs and other work related expenses that people have. So for a number of years there have been many discussions about how to how else to measure poverty. And one thing that I would emphasize I think for everybody who's involved in this process there is an appreciation that there is no single number that captures everything we care about. And there is not just and an improved number that will tell us everything we want to know about ability to meet basic needs about struggling to get by about economic security. So we need to have multiple measures at the same time. What the what the administration has done and is has just recently announced is a plan to be reporting what will be done is a supplemental measure so that the official measure wills will stay in place as it as it is and it affects a lot of things

around how federal money is given out who's eligible for particular programs. None of that will be affected by this. But at the same time the census bureau starting in 2011 will begin reporting this supplemental measure it's drawn on works that have been done by the National Academy of Sciences. A lot of research that has gone on since that time to try to build on it and to look more closely at the findings from the National Academy of Sciences. So it draws on the it will continue to go through refinements over time because we're always learning and we're always improving the data. But what it will do is allow us to have along with the official measure a supplemental one which will provide additional insight to better understand who's poor and to better understand what the effects are of things like health care costs and work related costs the

tax policy near cash benefits that might make a difference in helping families get by. So it will help us have a better understanding of poverty. So yeah Ferragut you many of you have mentioned just the breadth. Of Senator Kennedy's legacy for children. I mean we're talking about education and health care. Family Policy work policy. And we have seven minutes left so we're not going to cover it all. But I thought we might talk a little bit about. Priorities in the field of education and. I was hoping you might talk a little bit about sort of what's what's right up next what should our first priority be right now. Well you know I think we are at the greatest civil rights challenge as Marian mentioned is the fact that we have so many young people failing in school for not through no fault of their own because they don't have access to a good education. It's absolutely stunning.

Senator Kennedy was always willing to kind of look around the bend and look for the things that could work you know to to go back against the son of some of the trade associations and interest groups that wanted things to stay the same and put children first. And that has been a his long fight and it's a fight that I think they're starting to be some traction. Around having you know understanding that we do need to hold schools accountable in some way for the success of their students and teachers accountable and to look for those things that are going to teach us the way the charter the charter schools and the choice I worked on that's one of the first hearings I ever worked on back in 1980 was 1987 was a hearing on innovations in education which looked at things like school choice and whether or not there was room for that in the public school system and the fact that Senator Kennedy was willing to be out there on that topic. Back many decades ago. And here we are still struggling with what do we do when some kids are in schools

that are failing is ridiculous. I've been working a lot with social entrepreneurs. And one of the great marriages between Senator Kennedy's sort of forward thinking and is this the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is that many social entrepreneurs have their start here and in this state. And so I toward the toward the end of his career I had a chance to work with him on things like. How do you take the citizen schools model and take it much larger. How do you take City year that brings people together across boundaries and puts them to work in schools. How do you take that to scale through serve America. And we have all of you know many people in Washington often say we have our solutions out there we just don't have the mind to take them to a scale where they're needed. And. That's the lesson in education as it is with all of these programs that we don't just need we need the safety that we've been talking about desperately it's just wrong to have people who are hungry and can't get health care. But that alone doesn't take them upward upward through the system and these kinds of programs. That

put an engaged learner in a school or in a system that supports them with a good teacher in a classroom. This is not rocket science. We know how to do this. We also have the public well and I think Massachusetts does and I think that you are you always lead the way because Senator Kennedy looked to Massachusetts for models and we need to keep doing that it's never good enough. He was always willing to say you know that program I worked on that 20 years ago and you know what it didn't work out so well and we need to be able to say that about our government programs that one didn't work out so well let's make it better because you can always make it better. Thank you. Senator Dodd I know that you have been very involved in education issues too and in fact just this past Wednesday an. Example of bipartisanship you introduced with Nevada Republican Todd inside the improving 20th for a 21st century community learning centers Act of 2010 which would expand afterschool programs. And I was hoping you could tell us a little bit about that.

Well again it's one of those examples again reaching across lines and trying to bring people in the you don't always know so you agree with that. Rarely agree with in some cases. And get along. I've never argued why people are willing to support you on issues that they will get over that problem early on. Remember on a side issue years ago I was working on the embargo issue in Cuba. And I was trying to find a partner on the other side that might help me on that issue. And I ended up with John Ashcroft from Missouri. So how did you end up with John Ashcroft. Well John Ashcroft cared about rice farmers in southern Missouri and he wanted to sell rice in Cuba. That's good enough reason for me we joined on the issue they didn't argue about why. And so Ajan answer is something that Marian said earlier that really deserves being repeated because it's something that's been missing I think in the debate about child poverty and these issues and that is what Marian has always brought to the table and that is the holistic version of this. If I get any lessons from Marian over the years and these proposals people would would somehow tease us when Mary would come with a bill that had 85 titles to it at least

and it would be easily 20000 pages long or something like that really. And the reason was it wasn't because she just had all these disparate ideas. What if you sat back and looked at what was presenting was a holistic version. So it all headstart was about why Teddy cared so much about early Head Start. It wasn't about necessarily getting someone to be at the starting blocks and kindergarten or the first grade. Better off was trying to get people even because of where they were coming from the circumstances they were growing up in the neighborhoods they were and the availability of the quality of food nutrition. All of these factors which contribute to the child is ready to learn. I have a sister taught for 41 years in the public school system helped revive the American Montessori system of teaching Vacca that would be school in Greenwich back in the 1950s. And that whole idea of children particularly when her retiring years she realized that children are coming to school in the inner city of Hartford where she taught at the school just lacking the ability to communicate with each other because they were being stuck in front of TVs or video games and lacked the

aural skills to be able to communicate. So she was allowing children to talk during the day in school something all of us in this room were told we actually couldn't do in school but just it differently along the way. So this this particular bill is one version of that because it not only deals with after school which is that one period of time that we never paid enough attention to and going back over the years I formed an after school caucus we we had different bills on supporting programs at Massachusetts Connecticut had lighthouse programs and the like. That period from two or three o'clock until roughly six o'clock is a devastating period and we're parents. In fact used to tell me probably not true today that if you tried in a rural community to actually make a telephone call after three o'clock there was always a delay between the time you dial the last digit and actually click in because in that community so many parents were calling home to make sure their children had arrived safely and that half an hour period. And so it's when they're victimized is when they they victimize other people. All the things that happened

so we're trying to build that in but it really is one piece of it Chris and I and I. It's so we try to build these blocks along the way to get this done. And that's one piece that we've included things like obesity. I love what Michelle Obama is doing on obese who had a Tom Harkin who chairs Teddy's committee the help in education health and education Labor Committee the other day on the obesity issues how can we deal with how do we fit that in. How do we get things like food stamps how do we get school nutrition programs all of these other things which contribute to a child's ability to learn all of those factors contribute to their economic opportunities. Again it's the holistic version of this that we're trying to pull together in the various pieces and this is one. Factor an important piece of this I would add as well. Yeah thanks. So I got ask one more question and then I'll open up the floor if you have questions to ask you might start thinking about them right now. But Mary maybe you couldn't wrap up a little bit and tell us why. Well your most important building blocks are right now. Well I'm glad to.

See what happened. The first thing I'm not sure the first thing we've got to do is to make sure that our children are not born with re-inforce strikes against them and have the basic right to health care. We need to get the health care bill. About. Everybody has been you know reaching out and talking about a bipartisan idea that one candidate has to stop. And that's really wonderful but you can't let bipartisan and hijack what needs to be done at the moment. So just get the bill passed that's supposed to. Support. This. The whole thing is so basic and for and for our little baby having hundreds of thousand babies born every year three and four or five strikes again and they never get on a track to healthy adulthood. We got to have an early learning care and sister we got to get them ready for school. We've got at this budget of the president we've got the best budget for children and for the poor that I can remember us ever having. We need to focus on it. We need to get

that early learning fund through. We need to get the home visiting money through. We need to get the expanded child care headstart which is all there but we need to put into place a high quality comprehensive early childhood system which you've been working on. He's been wonderful. Well we've got an opportunity to put that together. We've got to use this recovery act money and ways of fostering innovative partnerships at the community level to deal with children zero to six good policies just being good parenting is like good parenting. The common sense building blocks of a content with care but we've got the opportunity to make some real strides forward an early childhood development. Then we've got to get through a really good elementary and secondary education act. We need to have accountability built and we need to get bad teachers out of classroom and get good teachers in the classroom that educational leadership and we know how to do that. And so but this is a real opportunity we need to make the formula one that's going to be fair to poor children. So we've got the ESEA reauthorization this year let's do it right. We've got strong leadership I

don't want you to get this done. You've got to get to them before you leave. So we've got to get this done. I am sure our children are in school. We're only 17 18 percent of their day of their time. That's why your afterschool programs your summer learning programs we know how to run first rate programs to keep them from stauncher you know having some learning all we need to talk about afterschool summer enrichment we need to talk about jobs jobs jobs and good jobs for people we need to talk about expanding the earned income tax credit the president wants to make them permanent the child tax credit. Again we know what to do to supplement and make work pay and the opportunity is there in the budget to make some real strides forward and if we go ahead and do that. But we have also got to pay attention to the disconnected young people. We really there are young people growing up without any work experience without any summer jobs with any way I'm beginning to see that there's a different future. And so we need to be plugging in something for disconnected youth and for work. And so I just think you know what but we've got some opportunities this is a really important time and we shouldn't be sitting here saying why doesn't Congress

do what the president do. The pieces have been laid out there. Why don't we get our voice together and build the kind of noise that the other side has built to make these things happen. So I guess you know what to do. And I wanted to kind of ask because I saw this astonishing thing figure and Jason the pearls piece and Senator Kennedy went down to Mississippi in 1967 and we took him through houses and he shot sharecroppers who had no income and who could not afford the money for food stamps and Orville Freeman did not believe when Robert Kennedy came back. There were people in the United States of America with no income. And so he said my husband my now husband back down to go back and retrace the steps to show them. Jason Apparels piece of I'm remembering because I still can't quite believe it I've been meaning to call you to ask you is it. He said in this piece that one in 50 Americans have no cash income today. The New York Times and that they were relying on income programs like food stamps or SNAP. I still call it food stamps and other kinds

of subsidies to housing and others. But it's possible that one in 50 Americans today would have no cash income. That's what I read it four times. It's possible. And one of the things we need to say it's always happened. We all thought none of us thought. Many people who are now in food stamp lines with ever thought they would be in food stamp lines. People who are now in risk of homeless shelters we never thought it could happen to them. And so I just hope that we can use this moment of need as a way of trying to say we need to make sure that this country is going to take care of people when they come across difficulties. And but is it possible that just a pro-peace. If I could actually let me comment on a couple of things that that Marian said and I will come back to that to the point that you finished with. So the first in here as we seek to move ahead one of the things with the administration is very strongly focused on is the crucial importance of early education and in the

Recovery Act. Last year there was additional funding provided and both for Headstart and for child care in the budget that has been put forward now. The administration proposes to sustain that that funding for Head Start is also proposing a an additional 1.6 billion dollars for child care assistance at the same time that we're focused on the resource aspect of it we are also very concerned about how to improve the quality of both headstart and child care and placing it in a whole range of ways. A strong emphasis on both and at the same time the importance of trying to bring together what are sometimes disparate efforts around child care and Headstart and other early childhood programs and state pre-kindergarten efforts and trying

to encourage the development of a much more coordinated approach to early childhood care and education and child well-being. So we are at it at HHS. We're working very closely with the Department of Education around it. It is something that the president feels very strongly about and we hope to make great strides on or on early childhood education on the issue of people without income. It is one of you one of the things which the president is emphasizing repeatedly and which I would underscore today is the devastating effects of high unemployment in this country and the need for a jobs strategy which the administration is actively working with Congress and others to do to try

to advance towards addressing the unemployment situation that we currently face. Recognizing the impact that that has both on individuals and on communities. So one piece of what clearly needs to happen is is addressing a much stronger approach around jobs. At the same time. One of the things that the the New York Times article that Marian is referring to highlighted is the number of families including families with children who were receiving the SNAP benefits what food stamps are now called and did not have other sources of income. This is a. A significant concern. It's something we want to better understand.

It's an area where we want to ensure that the programs that are in place are responsive to families so that the help can be provided to those who need it. Thank you sir. So I would like to open the floor to questions and there are microphones here and here. And I think there will be a large number of questions I would really like to encourage you to ask a question and keep it relatively brief. So should we start on this side of. I'll keep the comment extremely brief. I think we all understand the multiple connections between the health care legislation and child poverty and poverty in general. I'm asking you to suppose that or pretend. And Mr. Greenberg you don't have to pretend. And Senator Dodd I think you probably don't either. I'm asking you to pretend that you are the policy and political advisers to President Obama right now and you're meeting with him over a beer or two depending on where you're sitting in the White House area and. You're giving him

advice as to what he can do now to get that health care bill or the bills the Senate and House bills through. What advice would you give him. And I understand there's a value to working with the other party but it just seems to many people today that the other party doesn't want him to succeed. They want him to lose this issue and other issues so that they can win the presidency in 2012. What advice would you give him to President Obama today given the political realities about what he should do even if it includes twisting arms and capping needs to get it to happen. Senator Dodd I want to hear what you have to say about that. I like the twisting arms capping me part of a deal. All right. Well I believe it. I'm I'm I'm feeling more optimistic we're going to get the bill done.

When the gentleman when he was here with her and in fact Marion and Shirley and Mark were talking about this before we walked on the stage and I've always had I don't have any I haven't done any polling that I think of the question is more whether or not the votes will be in the house at this point as you realize and I got I go by the boring you with all the discussion of reconciliation and the like. And I am mindful that this process of reconciliation is a budget process it's one that's been around and should be used sparingly. But I happen to believe the issue is so much more important than a process question at this point. That we cannot miss this opportunity to get this done. And I don't know the vote counts in the house. I just my sense is that people begin to realize that that what we'd lose if we don't get this done. And that's not to suggest that you'd all agree with every dotted line crossed T in this but the idea that the average family in this country is going to be paying $2000 a month in about seven years for premiums or that you're going to see even further erosion we're going to have every state in

this country the next seven years will have an increase of 10 percent of the uninsured in their states and 30 states will have a 30 percent increase in the uninsured. And if you wonder whether or not that should worry you at all and not just consider the following that you're paying on the average somewhere around eleven or twelve hundred dollars a month to pay for the uncompensated care. Those families I saw last night at 1:00 in the morning an emergency room at the Children's Hospital in D.C. who was showing up not because it was an early stage they were going to the last minute they had no other choice but to be there that carries them out for FREE. So there are a lot of issues that are surrounding this question so I think the president needs to be doing what I believe they're doing and that is being on the phone calling people who are wavering wondering whether or not they ought to be voting for this. I believe in the Senate 59 people who were there who were Democrats and possibly who knows the new senator from Massachusetts one never knows here might actually cast a vote where 51 votes will be needed not 60 to get the bill adopted through that process. A majority of the Senate to move forward.

So I think the president's on the right track of the administration is doing the things they need to get done. A lot of it's in Nancy Pelosi's hands and the leadership of the house to round up the votes to produce the majority vote there without the Senate passed bill being adopted. Obviously the Senate action can't move and that has to happen first not because she'd like it to be that way it's just procedurally how it has to happen not to get to the president's desk. Very important for us to ask what we can do. We've got to find those 35 to 40 House members who may be working. There's no constitutional prohibition against you writing e-mail. Members of Congress say we need to find out who the target we just need to make sure that our representatives are going to be on the right side of this. And I do understand this again. It's a hugely complex set of issues. And if it were easy there are very few applause lines in the sense immediately and all of this and they're not going to get a ticker tape parade necessarily right away from all of this. But but for this country to once again squander the opportunity that has defied almost every administration and

every Congress for 80 years in fact lure them to go back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt. And the problem does not get easier to solve. It doesn't become less costly. The way to address the issue to move us in a different direction where again the basic notion. I mean I guess we have to begin to ask yourself the following question Do you believe that health care is a right or a privilege. I disagree that ought to be a right in the United States ought not to be a privilege. To be getting the. You. How to do it so people can write can call can talk can utilize all sorts of vehicles available today that make access so much more available than it was even a few years ago. So I underscore Marians point well why don't we take the one question out here and then we'll come back to the other side as seems to be an even balance between the sides of the room. Exactly. It all depends on your perspective.

Thank you very much I appreciate each of the panelists and the moderator. I did a little Bingo game for myself to see whether my favorite topics were mentioned parents and parenting. And Senator Dodd and Mrs. Edelman Mr. Greenberg were the only ones who mentioned parents. A lot of lot of hits on child care. I'm all in favor of children and child care. And the mention of Prisons is good. I've done some parenting education programs in prisons. But I'd like to hear anyone speak on how parenting and parenting education programs parents support fit into the whole picture. I. Thought. So. So of course one aspect of it is that that's quite crucial as part of the headstart efforts. Another aspect that I particularly want to highlight is the role of home visiting particularly for parents of very young

children as as you may be aware one of the administration's proposed initiatives that they use to put in place a home visiting framework that draws upon a lot of research that's been done about the most effective kinds of home visiting programs at the same time. Spurs some additional expansion of these efforts around the country and increases our understanding. But what are the most effective ways in which home visiting can occur. And we are very hopeful about the potentials that that could have just that point to. And I totally agree with Mark's point on the home visit. How you do that achieve that. But it's fascinating to me. Head Start programs require and Marion or Shirley will correct me if I misspeak here. I think going to head start programs is a requirement of parental involvement. And you get about 80 percent parental involvement. Nationwide those numbers are fairly consistent a parental involvement. But

at the first grade in the same schools that involved drops to less than 20 percent. So it's not a long time I mean the of a year or so you watch this significant involvement or very little involvement. I again I know there's always this kind of. There's some tension obviously always between teachers and having parents come. I just think it's one of the most important points I think to the extent parents so many times these parents themselves have dropped out of school. They find that environment a frightening and hostile environment and they've got to change that because this is so that child ready to learn that child getting that support at home. All of that kind of guidance they can come. I had to pick out one thing. If I if you said I can only change one thing. That one where the woman went. That's the one thing that that's the one thing that I think could make a huge difference. If you could close that gap of parental involvement in education when they were far more aware and conscious of what's going on and then becoming a part of that process to me it's it's critical. Good evening. My name is seeming good and I'm a teacher here in Boston

and I do teach at the John deodorize school of mathematics and science. I teach AP Government and Politics of your fuel and U.S. history and I'm glad that the other person spoke about parents because the questions that I had for you and Mrs. Obama. But I think all can join in. Parents are my bosses and I also heard I didn't play the bingo but I did hear you say bad teachers. Well I'm not a bad teacher. I work very hard at what I do and I know you. But again we're being lumped. It's hard to have a bad teacher must have bad administrators. And. I can honestly say that Boston has some excellent administrators as hard as superintendent Superintendent Johnson's here and here. So my question here's here's my question for you hypothetical. No I'm not the politician but I do. I've read a few books

about it. Here's my question. Not just Boston. How can your retiring so you have some leverage here. You've lost a lot of luggage. You don't have to worry about it you're a retiree but you have young children. How can you help Dr. Johnson here in Boston. D.C. I understand their school system needs help urban systems across the country. How can you work with superintendents across the country without beating up teachers. But given this the superintendents the resources which is money that they need to do their jobs to serve the public because you mention Well you can write your congressman you can call them you can talk you can't call them if you don't have money to pay for a phone. You can't write them if you don't have the skill set. And you said yes there is this animosity between that parent and

schools because maybe they didn't have that successful school year. So then you're expecting their kids to be there when we're saying how do you help kids if they're poor. But in order to be a poor kid you have to have poor parents. So if I could choose parents maybe Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey. I keep my parents on the side. By a small island maybe Australia. So help me here with that. What can you do now that you're retired to help superintendents across the nation not just here in Boston. OK I think we have the past. I haven't figured out what I'm going to do when I retire. So I've got a five year old an eight year old I've got to worry about this. And this is it I'll sort that out at some point over the coming year but I hope Look I guess my my you know all of us have our different opinions in life and on these issues. And I grew up in a large family that says I told you about as a teacher is blind from birth. Remarkable woman.

And watched my parents who were upper middle income means in the nineteen forties and fifties be able to take care of her and other economic circumstances she would have been relegated to piece meal work someplace regardless of what her intelligence and abilities were as it turned out to be a remarkable teacher despite her visual disability. And I got excited when I graduated from college about something called the Peace Corps. And I went off and served in the Dominican Republic on the Haitian border for two years and had a life altering experience because otherwise growing up in 1950s and relatively segregated even in the northeast communities where our knowledge and awareness we always talk about the South but the reality is in the northeast in the Massachusetts and the Connecticuts our awareness and knowledge of what was going on even within our own vision was limited and that was a huge difference. So whatever I'm going to do in a way I'm going to find out some way to sustain that involvement in and in public life and education I think is critically important. But I haven't figured out specifically what it is but education would be a nice area to think about.

I appreciate you raising that them I just very quickly to say what I said. We need to get bad teachers out of the classroom. We do need to get bad teachers and bad administrators and bad people who work with children. I think education parenting is the most important group of parents supporting parents to raise good children. A parent who gave help and parents need support and parents can't do it alone. Particularly when you've got so many single parents and young families. But we need to empower parents and we need to support parents and we need to deal with around who parents are in our school hours and when we have parent teacher conferences. And there are many things we can do. I think that teachers and educators are the second most important people in the society in terms of the amount of time. And I think in the end I. Would. Not be that serious about citizenship and about the future that you would want to make sure you paid your teachers more than you pay a lot of your own accord. We need to.

We need to lift their status and this is why I have a son who's a teacher and who has been a principal and who is now working for the D.C. public schools. And I'm the second son who's also running full time on public education. So I think the most important things and he's got to we've got graduate degrees pastries and master's degrees. My younger son who has no graduate degree in his work for HBO makes more money than his older brothers. And so you know our value system needs to change. We need him to. Say. Know. We want children to shape the future and really get the best people into teaching and send this in the wake of people off to the corporations or whatever. But. The point is. We need the key we know how to educate. We should just have the best possible people in our schools at all levels at the mental level. You've got the wonderful Carol Johnson who's here and she's making a difference. And the Boston public schools. But we need to have everybody encouraged to go into teaching because that is the civil rights challenge of the next decade. And that's happened. And so I didn't mean to paint everybody I'm just saying

everybody in the classroom should be good. A good teacher in a child's life is the key ingredient of whether they are going to succeed in many ways and a bad teacher can do irreparable damage. And I go around saying let's get more people going with teaching. But if you don't love children you don't expect children to learn you don't respect all children. Please go do something else. It's too important. Go. Did not. Do that. But. We value what you do. Well I'm actually not an expert. OK. That then we'll take to the next person. Thank you. Hi I ask a question really as a journalist to cover children and family issues for a number of years and think of myself as someone who reads quite a lot and pays attention to these issues. And until I came here this afternoon I wasn't aware as Marianne made me most aware that this budget looks like a good one for children. And of all the pieces that were part of that I've worked on early education issues. So my question as a journalist

is that with fewer and fewer resources at newspapers and broadcast outlets today with fewer and fewer people covering children and family issues and bringing messages out and with less and less prominence of both the word children and the word poverty coming from anyone in this administration or anyone that I know of in Congress today in putting it out there short of cloning. Marian Wright Edelman and sending her around 360 days a year to deliver messages like this. I'm curious how all of you think that the message you talked about the voice Mary and you talked about the voice needing to come from here from this room but how does the information now get to the people who really have to become the voice and become and share the passion that you have as a journalist. I'm quite concerned that the journalistic community may not be able to carry this load. And I'm wondering how you see in this fragmented media environment that we have today

how these messages come forward and inspire people to be where you are on this stage. Thank you. It's so hard to get out the message on children. And it's so hard to get out good news about children. It's so hard to talk about all the good practices that are out there we know a lot and there are wonderful people doing wonderful things that need to move them to scale and ensure consistent quality. The media isn't interested if I wanted to attack the president if I wanted to attack somebody if I wanted to be negative. I mean it's it's it's it's it's so hard it's been frustrating and the health debate to say hey we've got to make sure the children don't get their fair share or we would protect them. Nobody cares about. I mean it's just very difficult. The fragmented media is a big issue and during the civil rights days during our we have three networks. You could see the same police dogs you can see the same firehoses you could see the same kind of if you could frame an issue and you had a core are really intelligent

seasoned civil rights reporters who knew the actors. My goodness it's a 10 second miracle to the day and nobody wants to deal with things that entertainment or there's not Gore. So it's a huge problem Melissa. And I hope you are going to figure this out up the shore and stay in school and figure out how we do because it is one of the big bill. Surely you've got an answer about this because I totally agree and I am hearing things for so long and I've learned so much from her. But you know you can't we can't clone you. So you know either the social media world. You know people it's bad because everybody's looking for somebody who agrees with them right. So are you going to read that blogger who was going to repeat back every thing you know you agree and then you're not necessarily going to spread it. The good news is with so many so many ways to get messages out now we can hear from the people themselves in communities instead of having to wait for some reporter to go and interpret their story. And I think we're in a transitional phase now where we have to take advantage of the fact that we can now hear from somebody who is you know in a bonding area of

Afghanistan who has a cellphone and you know we need we can now hear from the people themselves in communities who are affected we can hear from children we can hear their voices. So as we go through this great transition where the establishment interpreters told us what to think and now we are all set free. There are some opportunities there that we didn't have. So let's think about how to use those to really tell that story and then translate that into action and I think one of the best things about national service and volunteering is it will get people to cross the street and see what's actually going on. And it's already paying some dividends and people are becoming much bigger activists than they might have if they had just been getting it all from their television networks. I only hope Shirley is right. I'm worried she's not. That. In fact what you've described is deeper than you could imagine. In many ways what Marion has said and what we report about we don't report about planes that fly. And this is just as an anecdotal experience in my little state of Connecticut.

I when I was 10 years ago 15 years ago I had 11 reporters covering the Connecticut delegation. Do they all have one. Not a single reporter from a single media outlet in my state that covers the seven of us who represent the state of Connecticut the Congress the United States. I was one of 35 or 40 people at the Blair House a week or two ago with President Obama for seven hours listening to this. But if you want to call it think on health care and not a single story in my Connecticut papers that one of their members was there what did I say what did I think. What were both my views of what happened and so forth. So this disconnect in a sense is today. You know you've got your network of choice where you can go and just confirm your own views on things. So we're not asked to deliberate be deliberate at all in our functioning process. I hope Shirley is right that this is a transition period and we're going to find some alternatives. But the disconnect is huge. And I could just tell you it's a it's I worry deeply about I'm not worried about these institutions that are going through

rough patches and so forth. There's nothing new historically about that. What is new is people's ability to have access to information that allows them to form their own opinions. Well today we're being told what to think and I'm worried about how that's where it's going to produce the or social media. We're trying all these new things but there is also such and I think there's such a glut of information. I mean there's just so much you turn to. I mean you just turn her off and there's And again with people who don't have time. How do you discern between the good and the bad. There's so much junk out there I couldn't believe the first time I am to look at something I said do I mean people spend time doing this. And so we've got to figure out. So you know we've got this is a very big issue about how do you get an intelligent informed citizenry and how do we get accurate information so that they can hold people accountable for the decisions they make. I'll let you decide who's next. Not well

I would choose but those people were asleep. All right. My question is your what we are going to do with elementary education. I hear so often. We're going to have more charter schools. If this had we thinking what happens to those children who don't make it into a church or school what are we going to do is there I am against charter schools for that reason. It's got to have good schools good charters good public schools whoever is in there to educate them. I'm a very strong proponent of the public education system that's where we've got to upgrade our teachers. We've got to give them the resources that they need. We've got to encourage more and more good people to go into teaching and an ethic of having Teach for America. But there's no one answer. We have got to just make sure that we understand that every child has a right to get an education. I mean if you can't read and write in this competing this this economy you're being sentenced to social

economic death in our country is being sentenced to second class status in this competitive world. And so we've got to change our bodies that a fundamental new paradigm shift. And right now you pay those with us a pediatrician those who work with children are always the least valued in society and we've somehow got to change the paradigm of what is important to us as human beings and as Americans. And I think that we were all put on this earth to make the future better in the next generation better off than we've done. But we are breaking that contract and we have got to come to grips with that. Like my father I'm a believer in public education is part of both of my daughters are in public schools in the United States and I believe we ought to stick with that system and make it work. And there are great public schools and we don't celebrate them enough. Every year in Washington D.C. There are great public schools. You get this stories every time about the public school system in Washington D.C. doesn't work. That's not true. There are like in any community there are schools that are not

functioning but there are ones that are terrific. My 8 year old goes to a school with 34 different languages spoken in her school. Kathleen she hear first grade teacher was teacher of the year in the District of Columbia last year. Is a remarkable environment going on in that school where my early five year old is in a preschool program. Great programs. No one ever reports about what happens in the Peabody school or the high school but there are great schools with great teachers and a remarkable principal that works at it. No one is going to go to bat for them. We have time for one more question I'm sorry. For those of you who are standing there. OK. Thank you. First I can't be at the smoke without thanking Marian Wright Edelman for her lifetime of inspiration of courage of commitment. All right. I'm going to try to be succinct at the risk of being blunt here with sort of two pieces to this.

One is that there are at least three issues that I didn't hear addressed tonight which are this afternoon which I'm wondering whether anybody thinks they have any impact on kids living in poverty I'll name them then I'll save my second piece to it. It's the growing economic divide between the very very very richest and all the rest of us. The fact that we're fighting two wars and spending billions of dollars on that and the Supreme Court just having ruled that corporations are people. So I'm wondering whether those relate to our issue of eliminating child poverty and tied in with that and especially from this rate Edelman. But I think for all of you Ms Wright Edelman were part of a movement that involved resisting illegitimate authority disrupting business as usual putting economic pressure and boycotts on. How does that relate to how we make progress and if so how do we get that going. I know those were big questions but then again I'm the last person you get to ask. So I'll throw it all out there.

Thank you. The gap between rich and poor is the highest ever recorded. It's it's the top 1 percent who has walked off. With the wealth over the last part of the nation and the poor have been getting poor. And it's it's disgraceful. Again it's about a paradigm shift in our and our country. We could end child poverty tomorrow. But what we have been spending on the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We've got any child poverty tomorrow. If we really did freeze the tax cuts or let them expire will not increase. You know for the top crowd of the 2 percent we could we could give that money to children and educate them. It's not an issue of money it's an issue of priorities we have really and rich the rich at the expense of the poor and two and a half million for children the last couple of years that's before the new data that has come out before the Depression. And so it's of course it's every week we've seen that day and nationalization of our economy.

You've seen this growing set of tax breaks for the people who need it the least at the expense of those needs. It is at the bottom it's about what we are valuing So we need to reorder our national priorities. I am a child of Howard Zinn who has recently passed and. And I think that this is the 50th anniversary of the sit ins of her time I ever went to jail and when children just we believe we've got to find a new way of getting attention about what has happened to us. And and we've got to reorder our priorities. We've got to reset our moral compass and that's not going to happen without a movement. And the Tea Party is not that movement. We have got to be that movement. And we've got to talk about who. We are as Americans and a world that is already two thirds non-white and poor. But what an opportunity this is. I mean we've done a miraculous thing here with the election the first African-American president. He has a great opportunity and chance to succeed but it takes a movement from those of us on the

outside to help that it has to be a partnership. And so we've got to find new public theaters we've got to take new risks. You can't get over this huge class and racial divide still because racial disparities are still rife in our society. And that's what's driving the prison pipeline. It's poverty and basic skills level in race. But but we've got a fight and you can't do that in incremental steps. The more I think we've got to take a big jump but I think that we've got to think about how we catalyze a social movement. It's much more complex today. This is not the 60s but we've got to figure out what the ingredients of the next movement to finish the job of Dr. King and Robert Kennedy and others start it's in the context of the 21st century because we've got to have a movement to put the social and economic underpinnings beneath the political and civil rights. And that's what this is all about that's what children are about. And we figured that children were the best metaphor for trying to do what Dr. King was trying to do build a cross-racial movement to deal with economic inequality.

And he talked about the three big isms of militarism materialism and poverty. And so we have got to dress these fundamental needs to reorder priorities and so that's the challenge before us. Or else we're going to go backwards. And so this is a very important move. I think time a very difficult time but we've got to go forward and not backwards and so I think that time we've got some hard thinking to do. We got some hard work to do but it's going to take a level of citizen activism. And we've got to involve young people and they're ready. We have trained I don't know 15 20000 young people down at Alex Haley farm with this next movement and they're going to step up to the plate so we're going to have that movement. The only issue is when and how but we've got to have it if our country is going to be selfish in my view. So thank you for that question. Try vigorous vigorous all the way around because we're we're gathered here to talk about about Ted Kennedy and his legacy.

And in a sense it had tried to think what what if he were sitting in this chair today. And Lord knows I wish he were. Believe me it's in so many occasions. I think he'd pick up on these themes and he did in his life and has a sense of what he did so effectively and that is his sense of idealism and purpose and also the ability to get things done. And how many times I heard him say to me is sitting next to him in those committee hearings were not always going to get everything we want but let's get as much as we can. And you go back historically in some of the great social movements and successes of our nation in the 20th century did not occur just in one year they began progressively. The Civil Rights Act the Voting Rights Act did not just happen in 1964 and 65. They began decades earlier and they were people who fought great fights did not achieve everything they wanted but they moved along in that process. And we need to sort of keep in mind whether you are at a local activist whether you're a teacher a superintendent of schools whatever your calling in life is if we can walk away all of us regardless of what we do are going to do to marry those principles of being determined about what we

believe in and pragmatic enough to know how to get it moving along. We only get a second to time you and I in this process we're here just so briefly and to take advantage of the time we've been given to make that difference and that's what Teddy did for 47 years in the United States Senate. He never missed an opportunity to move the process and that's. Why. We. Forget that. Doesn't matter. It addressed the issues to people's self-interest. And I don't hear anybody doing that in in the debate. I hear lots of reasons why people self interests are being people being convinced that their self-interests go to not paying taxes instead of not educating people who are going to be taking care of

them later on. And I'm asking you in particular if if you can be some place where a media event can be covering you all the time until the big end. I say that only because you said it so clearly and beautifully. Thank you. Everybody's got to say it we been broken records for the last 40 years. I just realize you're back we're saying the same thing year after year after year after year after point it takes you 40 years to take it you know and then it becomes a new idea if you keep it. That's why I keep hoping somebody will wake up and say oh I've discovered this new thing. But let's go to our Web site because we're just about to put out a slate of children 2010 in America and we'll have all the tradeoffs about how much you can get from the military to do this and say all the ways in which you can reset. And then you take your spiritual effort with them you go out there because it needs a lot of people saying it in lots of forums. And what we can try to do is to inform you we have training. And you can get that off of the Web site. So just look up through the Web site W.W. Deborah Cho was a friend or you'll get more information than

we need. It's going to be we're. Upgrading our Web site. We're putting out new data but we're also always saying what you can do where are you can come and get the skills to do it better. But we just need to begin to to empower as many people as we can to take this message because that's what they hear back home. That's going to be important. And so we thank you for that. But we've all got to be joining in. And. I'd like to thank the panel the organizers and especially all of you for coming out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. So thank you