AS: Now one thing that bothers me is that when you start meeting with different members of the education community, everybody points at everybody else, rather than everybody saying lets all of us do more about this.

JK: You got it. Amen. Look, if we keep finger-pointing we'll keep being in the whole. If we say together, were going to roll up our sleeves and solve this...Look, family's got to be a part of this. Families have got to say to their kids that education matters. You know, you and I were talking yesterday. Your mother said to you--your mother didn't have it in mind--but what she said to you is, you know, 'you're a worthy person who's capable of great things.' So families have to matter. School systems have to matter. School districts are responsible; principals are responsible; teachers are responsible; government is responsible to make sure that the schools are properly supported and funded. All of those issues matter. And instead of pointing fingers, we should all come together. And as you said yesterday, there should be no sacred cows, Al.

AS: No and I think that that's right. And I think that--when you look at the fact that--I saw one report: 7000 kids a day are dropping out. I was in Detroit last week: only 34 percent of black males are graduating. And it's amazing. And all of us are proud of Barack Obama--at least I am, I can't speak for everyone in education. Here's a man within a shot of getting into the White House, went to Harvard. But how are we going to have another Barack Obama if over half of black men are not even graduating high school, and no one even sees it as a crisis?

JK: That's the point. You know I spent a lot of time in churches talking to community groups, and what I have said--and I have said this without hesitating--the greatest single domestic crisis we face is the racial and ethnic achievement gap. I've put that ahead--and you know, I think we have all sorts of challenges on energy and climate policy; we have economic challenges--but no one is focusing on the fact that skin color and poverty have become outcome determinative for the quality of education. That is something that's going to take a lot of people pulling together, willing to address, and willing to seriously change. I'll give you one number; it's a number that will really give you a sense of this. Every several years they test fifteen year-olds throughout the world. They have the 30 industrial countries, and in that group, number 30 is Mexico. And you know who is below Mexico? African Americans in the United States.

AS: Below Mexico?

JK: Below Mexico. Now that's the dimensions of the challenge.

AS: That's amazing. Let's go to Atlanta Georgia. Laurie, Laurie you're keeping it real with Al Sharpton, talking to Chancellor Klein. Hello?

Not Laurie: Yeah, how are you doing? What I wanted to say is that I'm from Chicago, and I was, you know, a gangbanger, did all kinds of stuff, didn't finish high school until later on. I think the education system is not addressing the needs of the youth. I think that what gets the attention of more politicians, you know, even Barack Obama, is hip-hop music. And so we can begin to formulate a message for those who are listening, admirers, we can change their perception of school. We constantly have a system where all the young people think about is money, money, money, money. So we can't keep them in biology class in a way that's going to keep their attention. We can start bringing the whole community--mainly hip-hop artists, but also athletes...They think that if I rap or I play ball then that's how I'm going to make it. These kids are sixteen and they're almost going pro--they bypass poverty and go right for the pros making 2 million.

AS: No, I think that there's an unrealistic view, and thank you for your call, it's nice to hear your voice. I think that a lot of us are not dealing with a lot of this. And I think parents have to take responsibility; teachers have to take responsibility; everybody has to take responsibility. School administrators. But when we get in these conversations where people say 'no you can't touch me,' then I'm not going for that. Let's go to Laurie in Atlanta. I hear you now Laurie.

Laurie: I just wanted to say that my husband has been teaching in the public school system for a long time, and while you can definitely cite instances where teachers are lacking the skills that they need, one of the problems I think is parent participation, and just the external environment that some of these students come from. You know, if you go to a PTA meeting, there's no participation. School board meetings; you don't really see the parents there. And it's critical. If you go outside the urban environment you find there's more participation on the part of the parents.

AS: I think you're right, Laurie, and I'd be interested in the Chancellor's response. But you know what's going to be the chicken versus the egg? I said to a parent yesterday: why aren't more parents at these school meetings? And they said well, 'if we got a problem'you said your husband is a teacher'if you have a problem with a teacher, we're not allowed to talk about it, so why go to meeting if no one's going to let us talk about the problems?' I said, 'well you should be at the meetings demanding that!' So I'm saying that on the one hand, we've got to hold the parents responsible, but on the other hand, we can't tell parents that they can't come in with real grievances. And I work with unions, I love unions, but I really got angry--I would use another term if the Chancellor wasn't here, he's a religious man--when a union leader called me last night and said I can't question teachers. What do you mean I can't question teachers? If teachers are not performing then they have a right to be dealt with. We're not going to deal with sacred cows in this thing. First of all, the teachers are not teaching Joel Klein--they're teaching my kids, your kids. What are we talking about? I'm not protecting Klein, I'm talking about these kids. The parents have to be taken on; the teachers have to be taken on; the administrators have to be taken on. It's not working, and someone has got to stand up for these kids.

JK: And we can't let the schools off the hook. I mean that's--I hear this a lot about parents, but the fact of the matter is, Al, I'll show you the same kids in two different schools getting very different results. We've got to engage these kids. School is not a place where we can say to kids: 'you're not going any place. You come from a bad background and we're not going to change it.' We change the world for these kids.

AS: Gotta take a break. We'll be right back with more Chancellor Klein.

[Commercial break]

AS: I'm your host Rev. Al Sharpton, and we're live with our education segment, we're gonna do a weekly segment. And we have New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein in the studio and now we're talking about the press conference yesterday at the national press club. Now one of the things we did Chancellor Klein is send a letter to both presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain. And we heard immediately back from both of those camps.

JK: Both of them. We sent it out at five o'clock last night and we heard back from both of them this morning. They want to engage. They know we're talking about the right issue, Al.

AS: I think you're right. Well, let's go with the live line. I have a friend of both of ours on the live line here, tackling this issue since he's come to be known as far as I know. He's an outstanding public servant. He's the Mayor of Newark, NJ. [???] father's day at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Newark. Our friend Mayor Corey Booker. How you doing, Mr. Mayor?

CB: Doing great. Having each of you on this issue today is inspiring to me because you both have a voice that is a hundred percent right, and you're telling the truth, and it's a truth that we don't really, in my opinion, we don't want to confront. Which is our schools are failing our children. And we need to set a much higher standard to get a much better results. Thank you both for being so committed to this issue.

AS: Now let me ask you, you run a city that has some very serious problems that you inherited when you came in. How do you tackle this issue and what needs to be done in your judgment by parents, by listeners to really hold everyone accountable to raise the achievement levels and to maintain a standard that turns this around?

CB: Well, I appreciate you starting in the right place. In other words, we can't talk about a system that needs to change until we change ourselves. And it's deplorable what goes on when it comes to the community involvement, the parental involvement within our schools. If we think we can continue to do the same thing over and over again, and expect different results, we are thereby living out the definition of insanity. So parents have to start making a real choice about changing their habits to empower their own children. Having TVs on in homes for hours and hours a day is not productive to children learning. Not checking homework, not being engaged in your child's education is a way to ensure them that they're going to achieve a level of mediocrity at best, or worse a level of failure. So, what we're really trying to do is to find a way to get our community to step up and be more engaged, and that's everything from mentoring programs, to getting more caring adults in the lives of our children, to after school programming, and non-profits, community groups coming together. So it really starts with each of us as individuals making more of a commitment and asking a question, what am I doing differently to ensure the education of our future? But then you've got to start talking about conversations that many people just don't want to have. And it's just that we are going about education in a severely wrong way. And if you'll allow me, let me show you one paradigm that we all assume is the way to go and don't challenge and that's simply with the equation that in public education right now, time is the constant, and achievement is the variable. We are so focused on how much time our kids go to school. They go to school the same amount of hours a day. ] that's done by the union contract. At 2:50, 3:00, the teachers can leave. A little bit before that the kids can leave. The same amount of days during a year, and god forbid we have a snow day, then you add another day on. The time has to be the constant. Well the innovative schools in America right now are saying we've got to turn that equation on its head and make achievement the constant in a sense and time the variable. So instead of our kids achieving all over the place, they're gonna say no matter what they will learn. So you're seeing great schools now [ longer school days, having Saturday classes, instructing into the summer because during the summertime kids can lose as much as a grade level in reading, making sure that we also have longer school years. So these are some of the basic concepts that we've accepted in public education that we've got to start to question. And the problem is, we've created this atmosphere that for anybody to speak up about these issues, you become a heretic, especially within the democratic party.

JK: Now let's talk about that Corey. First of all, let me thank you not just for your leadership on the issue, but you joining the coalition with the reverend and with me and you've been speaking out on this. Now you just put your finger on something that I think the listeners are right to hear. Why is it that if you become a fighter on this issue, people turn against you? You've been a lone voice often times in public conversations on it. Why is it that we can't talk about this as a nation and get to work, as you said, holding constant achievement and worrying about how we get there.

CB: Well, I think that there's a lot of entrenched forces who benefit in many ways from the status quo. And I'm a big believer, I would not be here right now if it weren't for unions. My grandfather was a national player in the UAW. And our teachers, who frankly, in my opinion, are paid too little, our teachers are really great public servants. A lot of these work rules that we're seeing are absolutely insane.

AS: We're going to have to take a break, Mr. Mayor, now hold one second, we gotta take a break, we'll be right back, let him finish his point and go on to run his city. Keepin' it real, Sharpton, we'll be right back.

[Commercial break]

AS: I'm your host, Reverend Al Sharpton with Chancellor Joel Klein talking about the education initiative. Mayor Corey Booker was making a point. We're going to let him finish it - during a busy day, I thank him for taking time to do this. Go ahead, Mayor Booker.

CB: We can't allow laws to exist...

AS: Hello?

CB: Can you hear me now?

AS: Yeah, I hear you now. Go ahead.

CB: We can't allow laws that exist that allow... We want to support teachers, get - fight for more pay for teachers, more respect for teachers. But laws that exist that allow teachers - bad teachers to remain in the school system make it almost impossible to get rid of them - New York City spends tens of millions of dollars paying teachers that they would never allow back in the classroom - or laws that, frankly, don't allow us to give incentives to teachers who want to perform more or work more or get better results - that prevent us from giving them incentive pay. We've got to start understanding that teachers in many ways are our most valuable assets; we've got to treat them that way. But we also have to protect our children from bad teachers, abusive teachers, teachers that aren't getting the job done, or teachers who might think to themselves, I'm going to get paid whether you learn or not. And those are the kinds of things we have to start addressing to ensure that we make a change for our kids. But more importantly, these are the kinds of things going for the [inaudible] and have resistance more than anything from some of the traditional power bases within the Democratic Party that often don't want to make the change or make the sacrifice to change things for our kids' benefit.

AS: Well, thank you, Mayor Booker, and we wish you all the best, and I'll be staying in touch with you as we [roll?] this up nationally. Thank you for taking the time. And like I said, I'll be at your church Sunday, as I am every Father's Day. But thank you for joining us today. Let's go, let's go - we're going to go to our next guest here, but let's take a couple of calls, Chancellor Klein. We have Sue in Raleigh, North Carolina. Sue?

Sue: Good afternoon, Reverend Al.

AS: Good afternoon.

Sue: Okay. When I was a substitute teacher, I saw teachers black and white being lazy. The gym teacher would sit out on the field with the students and let them run amok. He would sit in a chair. No relationship with them at all. Not teaching them simple rules - okay, let's choose some teams, and let's play a game and keep score. They're lazy. The white teachers would just let them run amok in the gym - just playtime, like a riotous playtime. And also I've observed a teachers [inaudible] in a special education class, the teacher told me that day that I wouldn't find [him?] there. He said, oh, don't worry about anything; they're just going to sit here and watch TV all day. They don't -

AS: Well, see, and I'm not a teacher basher - thank you, Sue - but as an adult, when you have teachers that are outright neglecting - I mean, you can't tell me that I can't question that. Now that, I'm not going for.

JK: I'm with you, but what you said is right. None of us can be teacher bashers. Teachers are the heroes out there. Teachers are the people who change the lives of kids. But what we've got to start to do is realize there are some teachers who are really doing an extraordinary job. We should reward them and reward them well. There are other teachers - and I hope it's a very small number - but there are other teachers who are neglecting children, who are ignoring children, who are not qualified. Now, I've been in classrooms where I've seen people, and if they were teaching my children, I would change it.

AS: Well, I definitely - I think that's gotta be one of the changes. It definitely has to be one of the changes. Let's go to Morgan in Atlanta, Georgia. Morgan is keepin' it real with Al Sharpton.

Morgan: Al, thank you for having me on the call. I definitely wanted to call about the issues that are very present here in Atlanta, Georgia. [Inaudible] with the Clayton County school system and the problem with the accreditation. Many of the parents have still been left on hold. We don't know whether they're going to receive that accreditation back or not, and not to include, as some of the comments that the other callers made, about the teachers in this county's school district that are very much neglecting the children. Because they're under the same pressures and scrutiny. Some of them want to quit their jobs in this county because of the accreditation, but because they're bonded to a contract, they cannot exit. And so they're neglecting the children.

AS: See, I'm hearing this all over the country - and thank you for your call. We've gotta - we've got everybody at the table represented but the children. And I think that that's what has got to become the priority, and that's gotta be part of the initiative. Let me bring in - we have on our live line now that Mayor Booker's gone the honorable Roy Romer, former governor of Colorado, former head of the DNC, now is the chairman of Strong American Schools' Ed in '08, and we're honored to have him as part of the initiative. How are you, Governor Romer?

RR: Reverend, I'm very good. It's good to be on your program.

AS: And Joel Klein is with us.

JK: Hey, Roy, how are you? Just one other thing - one other thing about Roy Romer. I want to tell you this. When he was at a time when any other person would've retired, he went and became the superintendent of the Los Angeles school district. I mean, after being governor, head of the DNC. And this man has got a passion about education, Al, that you're not going to see in many people.

AS: No, it was moving. When he got finished yesterday, I felt like I had been to church. Governor Romer, give us your view on why this is of critical importance about this achievement gap that we're trying to deal with and where we need to go from your vantage point.

RR: First, there's a lot of folks in this country that don't believe all children can learn. That's a terrible thing, but they really don't. And they look at a black or a brown child and say, well, you know, that child has a capacity not really to learn at a high level. I found that when I went to LA and had 35,000 teachers and 740,000 students. There were a lot of folks in that system who simply didn't believe we could reach for high standards. So the first thing one has to do is to change the belief in American schools. All children can learn, and all children can learn at a high level. When you start there, then you can address the system that you're dealing with and say, okay, what do I gotta put in place. But it really irritated me when I found people - teachers, administrators, and others - who said, oh, well, look, all kids can't learn; you kinda gotta sort 'em out. We have to educate all kids.

AS: Now, as we move into starting to deal with this question of standards, these questions of accountability, what specifically is Ed in '08 trying to [inaudible] and give priority to.

RR: Ed in '08 is trying to push the presidential campaign - the candidates, the staff, and the whole press contingent - to focus on education as a critical national issue. And we're pushing three elements. One, that we have to raise expectations and standards across the board for all students. Two, we've got to put much more emphasis on having an effective - an effective teacher in every classroom. Three, that we've gotta provide more time for students to learn. There are many students who simply need to have more time to accomplish the skills that they need. And as you'll notice, those are very, very close to the ingredients of the declaration that you and Joel made just a day or two ago. But those are the three emphases. And our campaign is really aimed at aiding the candidates and their staff, and to get them to develop policies that are well [inaudible] to changing this scene, and secondly, getting a political will across America that says, we simply can't not do the job. Al, I'm really concerned about how we're drifting back compared to the other nations of the world. We used to be at the top 20, 30 years ago. Now, in math performance we're 25th among 30 nations.

AS: 25th.

JK: The whole nation. 25th.

RR: And, you know, many nations that are doing a lot better job than we are, and there's no reason for it. We should be doing a better job, particularly for children of needs.

AS: Well, we thank you, Governor Romer. We're gonna let you go. Thank you very much. We'll be in touch. We'll take a break, and we'll be right back. We're gonna talk with Joe Williams of Democrats for Education Reform and Amy Wilkins of Education Trust, VP of Government Affairs. Joel Klein is still with me another segment. We're gonna do this every week, Chancellor Klein. We're gonna make this a hot issue all over the country, an hour with you and I to talk about education. We'll get union leaders on, everybody. We are not leaving anything off the table. We've got to save the education in this country. Keepin' it real! Sharpton. We'll be right back.

[Commercial break]

AS: Chancellor Joel Klein is still with us another segment as we're dealing with these education problems. We're joined now by Joe Williams from the Democratics--from the Democrats for Education Reform. He's the executive director. By Amy Wilkins the vice president for government affairs of Education Trust. Welcome both of you joining Chancellor Klein and I for Keepin' it Real.

JW: Hi Reverend.

AW: Hi.

AS: Amy, you come from a civil rights family, let me put that out there. Let everyone know that you are related to the legendary Roy Wilkens, who headed the NAACP in the 60s and the height of that phase of the civil rights movement.

AW: Yeah, he's my uncle.

AS: He's your uncle and you're Roger's daughter?

AW: Roger's daughter, yes.

AS: Alright, thank you. Let me before I ask you a question, I got some people who've been holding on now, I definitely did want the Chancellor to give them the chance, Dr. Joyce, in Cleveland, Ohio. We haven't heard from Cleveland. Dr. Joyce, you're keepin' it real with Al Sharpton.

Dr. Joyce: ] you about education. I think it's a travesty what's happened to education in these United States to have somebody [ teacher's unions, absolutely horrible. It's up to parents really to stand up and say no, we want to be educated, not miseducated like the teacher's union tends to. It's interesting that we put a 40 year limit on what education [??]. Wasn't that when the Brown decision came down?

AS: Right.

Dr. Joyce: Because you know what white people said? White people said you can have our education system, we're taking our kids out. Those kids in the suburbs in Cleveland go to parochial schools, yet you can go to an all white suburb and find an all black school. [??] 10 of kids that are there. Also look at who are our teachers. Less than 10 of teachers are minority teachers.

AS: Now you were a teacher, Dr. Joyce? You were a teacher?

Dr. J: Yes. for 9 years. And, you know, it was a travesty what was going on. They'd take 25 to 30 third or fourth graders and say they can't learn because they can't sit in their seats. You can't even walk in the aisles.

AS: Wow, thank you for your call. Amy, what do you say about this problem?

AW: I think Dr. Joyce makes a lot of very good points. I think when you look at teachers and you look at low income kids, black and latino kids, what you find is they consistently get the least able teachers. The problem with our schools to a great extent is they serve as boot camp for teachers. We get in the very newest teachers who practice their craft on our kids and once they get good at it they migrate away to other schools. They really, and I think Joel and Joe will agree with this, if we're going to raise the quality of education that poor minority kids get the first and most important thing we can do is ensure that our kids get at least their fair share of the most effective teachers.

JK: I definitely agree with that. The research is clear on this. What Amy said has been documented time and again indeed recently by a bipartisan commission on No Child Left Behind. The most important thing in a child's education is the quality of that child's teachers. We all know that. And when it comes to quality, those teachers are not being evenly distributed in our country today. And that gets at the heart of the problem.

AS: Joe?

JW: I absolutely agree. And I'm glad that you're taking this up on a policy and political level because I think if you can take a concept that's as basic as making sure that we get the right teachers in front of the right kids, you back it up and you've got policies and labor agreements and regulations at all levels that need to be dealt with. So we need leadership in this country to carry this and to keep the focus on it. And it's going to take a lot of work, but we've got to do it.

JK: Joe, why don't you tell people what Democrats for Education Reform is all about.

JW: Sure, it's a - essentially we're a political action committee. We exist to try to provide cover for Democrats who want to take a lead on pushing the envelope on education issues. I think many of us who have been working in this sphere, we deal with politicians all the time who will say privately, I'm with you guys, you're absolutely right but what am I supposed to do, we've got constraints out there. Some of those constraints are the kinds of things that we've been talking about in the last two days with this project. But our idea is to try to show that there are democrats out there who do want to make a difference and who are courageous and want to take risks to do the right thing for kids. We want to make sure that they're rewarded for that and that they feel more than just grief from the status quo for doing that.

JK: And you know, one of the things, Al, that Amy's done that's important, her organization, Ed Trust, because you hear this a lot of times, you know, the kids, they can't do well, they're not really cut out for this. And her organization is focused on schools that are predominantly African-American or are predominantly Latino that are getting entirely different results. And people gotta hear this, right?

AS: Wow.

JK: Same kids, different results. And, Amy, why don't you talk a little bit.

AS: Let me take a break, we'll come back to Amy, and we'll wrap it up. Keepin' it real, Sharpton, we'll be right back.

[Commercial break]

AS: I'm your host, Reverend Al Sharpton, wrapping up with the Chancellor Joel Klein who is [????] education equality project together. Amy Wilkens. Amy, you were answering Chancellor Klein's question about the differences of the same students in two different environments, in two different schools. Very interesting question, go ahead, Amy.

AW: Yeah. One of the greatest challenges that this movement for high achievement for low income kids, or kids of color is the myth, the awful myth that these kids are so damaged by their circumstances, and so damaged by their poverty, that they can't learn, so why should we bother to invest in their schools? And so what the Ed Trust has done is look across the country and in fact found high poverty, high minority schools where kids are achieving at extraordinary levels. Where they're out-achieving the white kids in their state, where they're out-achieving other kids in their city. And what you find in those schools is just good strong teaching. There are high expectations for the kids. There are high expectations and accountability for the teachers. There's rich curriculum. There's a thoughtful use of time. And what these schools do is not magic. These teachers are mere mortals. What makes the different is that they're effective and that in fact they believe in the ability of these kids to learn.

AS: Well, I think you're doing great work. And all of us need to work together. Joel, tell us from your vantage point, what we need to do to get more politicians to really stand up on this issue.

JK: We gotta all get together, and we gotta say stop pointing fingers. Right? In so many instances it's this person's fault. And let's find solutions. Let's do right by our kids. We've got to start out with the belief that Amy just said and that is, these kids can learn. And the reason I know they can learn at an entirely different level. A kid doesn't have to be in the 10th grade and can't read. I know it because I've seen it with my own eyes. And if we all get together, and if there are no sacred cows, as you say, when we start talking honestly about problem solving, we're going to change the world for these kids.

AS: Joe Williams?

JW: Yeah, I think the only thing that I would add is that we've gotta have a blunt conversation about just how bad things are right now. And it sounds so basic, but I mean, one of the reasons that we have politicians who don't offer very bold solutions is we've got politicians who won't acknowledge the extent of the problem.

AW: Can I just add--

JW: Go ahead

AW: I just wanted to add one thing. I think unlike so many of the problems that we face in this country, we know how to educate these kids.

JW: Absolutely. Absolutely.

AW: This is - while the problem is big we do know the answer. We know what works and, which we, we educate and get to high levels plenty of mediocre white kids, plenty of mediocre middle-class kids. We know how to do education. This is really a question of political will. And does this country care enough about these kids. Is this country willing to say these are all our kids, enough to do the right thing here.

AS: And do we care enough to make the country care enough.

AW: Exactly.

AS: That's the last to add.

JK: That's what this equality project is all about.

AS: And that's what we're going to do. Well, thank you, Amy. We will have you back. Thank you, Joe Williams. Thank you Chancellor Klein, see you next week. We'll be doing this every week.