WEBVTT

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From Pacifica, this is Democracy Now!

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Proponents of the global warming theory

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say that higher levels
of greenhouse gases

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are causing world temperatures to rise

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and that burning fossil fuels
is the reason.

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The scientific evidence

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remains inconclusive as to whether human
activities affect the global climate.

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For decades,

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Exxon has publicly questioned
the science of global warming,

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contradicting its own internal findings

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by the company’s scientists,

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who confirmed a link
between burning fossil fuels

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and climate change.

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We’ll speak to Congressmember Ted Lieu,

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who’s calling
for a Justice Department probe of Exxon,

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as well as 350.org

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co-founder Bill McKibben,

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who just got arrested
for temporarily closing

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a local Exxon gas station
in a one-man protest,

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holding a sign reading,

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"This pump temporarily closed
because ExxonMobil lied about climate."

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And remember this stunning announcement?

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So, Mr. Zuckerberg, what role
are you playing in all of this?

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Are the rumors true?

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Will there be a check
offered at some point? Yes.

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Well, yeah, I’ve committed to starting
the Startup:Education foundation,

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whose first project will be
a $100 million challenge grant for—

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One hundred million dollars

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A hundred million dollars.

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Where has all the money gone?

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Five years ago,
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

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donated $100 million to fix the schools
of Newark, New Jersey.

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Tens of millions have since been spent
on hiring outside consultants

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and expanding charter schools.

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But what about the children
in one of America’s poorest cities?

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We’ll speak to Dale Russakoff,

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author of The Prize:

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Who’s in Charge
of America’s Schools?

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All that and more, coming up.

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Welcome to Democracy Now!,
democracynow.org,

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The War and Peace Report.

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I’m Amy Goodman.

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Slovenia has called in the army

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as refugees fleeing violence
in their home countries

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are streaming across Slovenian territory
in a bid

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to reach northern Europe
as winter approaches.

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Earlier today, a major fire
erupted at a Slovenian refugee camp.

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About 20,000 people have arrived
in Slovenia since the weekend,

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when Hungary closed its border
with Croatia.

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In Sweden, a suspected arson attack

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has gutted a shelter for asylum seekers
southwest of Stockholm.

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Fourteen people fled,
none were seriously injured.

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More than a dozen fires

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have been reported at accommodations
for refugees in Sweden this year.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin

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Netanyahu is facing criticism for saying

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the Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem

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was the one who inspired Adolf Hitler
to exterminate European Jews.

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Netanyahu described a supposed meeting
between the mufti and Hitler

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in November 1941,

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when Hitler "didn’t want
to exterminate the Jews ...

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he wanted to expel the Jew,

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" but the mufti encouraged Hitler
to "burn them" instead.

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The claim that the mufti inspired
the Nazi genocide of European Jews

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is a fringe theory
rejected by most historians.

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The Nazis’ "Final Solution" was already
underway when the meeting took place.

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The comments come amid a spate
of violence in Israel

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and the Occupied Territories.

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Earlier today, Israeli forces shot

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and injured a Palestinian teenage girl
in the West Bank.

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Israeli forces accused the girl
of having a knife

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and planning to sneak into a settlement
to stab residents.

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Canada’s newly elected
prime minister, Justin Trudeau,

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says he has spoken to President Obama
and confirmed his election pledge

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to withdraw Canadian fighter jets

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from the U.S.-led bombing campaign
against ISIL.

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Speaking hours after his election,

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Trudeau declined to say
when the jets will be withdrawn.

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Prime Minister-elect Justin Trudeau: "
About an hour ago,

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I spoke with President Obama,

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and we talked
about Canada’s continued engagement

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as a strong member
of the coalition against ISIL,

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and I committed that we would continue
to engage in a responsible way

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that understands
how important Canada has as a role

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to play in the fight against ISIL.

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But he understands the commitments I’ve
made around ending the combat mission."

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Syrian President Bashar al-Assad

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has traveled to Moscow
for his first overseas trip

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since the uprising
against him erupted in 2011.

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Assad held talks
with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Russia launched airstrikes
in Syria three weeks ago,

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saying it was targeting
the self-proclaimed Islamic State,

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although its attacks
have hit rebels fighting Assad.

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During the visit,
Assad praised Russia for the "help

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they are giving Syria," while Putin said
he wanted to see a political settlement

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to the conflict.

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The Obama administration
has approved an $11.25 billion deal

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to sell four advanced,

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Lockheed Martin-made warships
to Saudi Arabia.

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The move comes as Amnesty International
has called on the United States

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to halt arms transfers

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to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit
in war crimes in Yemen,

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where Saudi Arabia
is waging a U.S.-backed campaign

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against Houthi rebels.

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Mexico has agreed to relaunch its search

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for 43 students
from Ayotzinapa teachers’ college

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who disappeared last year.

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The Mexican government says the students
were attacked by local police

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and turned over to drug gang members
who killed and incinerated them.

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But international experts have rejected
the Mexican government’s account

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and pointed to involvement
by federal police and the military.

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The student Senate
at the University of Mississippi

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has voted to call
for removing the Mississippi state flag

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from university grounds.

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The flag features the Confederate battle
symbol in its upper left corner—

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the only state flag in the country

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that continues to use the design.

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Tuesday night, students voted 33 to 15,
with one abstention,

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to remove the flag.

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The university chancellor
still has the ultimate authority

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to decide whether the flag is removed;

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he has not yet said what he will do.

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To see our interview
with two student activists

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at the University of Mississippi,

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go to democracynow.org.

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Wisconsin Congressmember Paul Ryan says
he is willing to serve as House speaker

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if the Republican Party unites
behind him.

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Ryan was Mitt Romney’s running mate
in the 2012 presidential race

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and is known
for pushing deep budget cuts.

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He made the announcement Tuesday.

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Rep. Paul Ryan: "We have been
entrusted by them to lead.

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And yet, the people we serve,

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they do not feel
that we are delivering on the job

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that they hired us to do.

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We have become the problem.

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If my colleagues
entrust me to be the speaker,

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I want us to become the solution."

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Utah Congressmember Jason Chaffetz

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has said he will drop
out of the speaker’s race to back Ryan.

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Former Virginia Senator Jim Webb
has dropped out of the race

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for the Democratic
presidential nomination,

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saying he will consider
running as an independent.

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Jim Webb: "I’m stepping aside
from the Democratic primary process.

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But I will never abandon my loyalties
to the people

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who do the hard daily work
of keeping this country great at home

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and secure abroad, and we’ll just have
to see what happens next."

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Webb is a former Republican

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who served as Navy secretary
under President Ronald Reagan.

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The Arkansas state Supreme Court

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has delayed the planned executions
of eight prisoners until at least March

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to allow prisoners to continue

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challenging secrecy around the source
of lethal injection drugs.

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The move blocks
two executions scheduled for today.

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It’s the latest fallout
from a shortage of execution drugs

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after European firms
barred their use in U.S. executions.

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This week Ohio delayed all executions
until at least 2017

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due to difficulty obtaining the drugs.

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Meanwhile in Oklahoma, officials
are testifying before a grand jury

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about how they used the wrong drug
to execute Charles Warner in January.

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Nebraska, meanwhile,

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bought $54,000 worth of drugs
from Salt Lake City—

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India, not Utah.

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BuzzFeed News has revealed
a salesman in India

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has illegally sold execution drugs

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to Nebraska
and at least three other states.

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In Florida, family and friends
are raising questions

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about a plainclothes
police officer’s fatal shooting

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of African-American musician
Corey Jones.

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Palm Beach Gardens police say officer
Nouman Raja was in an unmarked cruiser

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when he stopped
to investigate Jones’ car,

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which had broken down.

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Police said the officer was "suddenly
confronted by an armed subject"

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and opened fire, killing Jones.

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It’s unclear if Raja
identified himself as an officer.

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There is no police dashboard
or body camera video of the shooting.

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And Ahmed Mohamed,

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the Texas teenager who was arrested
for bringing a homemade clock to school

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after authorities
said it resembled a bomb,

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is moving to Qatar,

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where he has a scholarship
to continue his education.

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The announcement comes after Mohamed
visited the White House

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for Astronomy Night

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and met President Obama on Monday.

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And those are some of the headlines
this is Democracy Now,

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Democracynow.org,
the War and Peace Report.

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I’m Amy Goodman.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We begin with the latest
in the Exxon climate change cover-up

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that some compare
to the deceptions of Big Tobacco.

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Recent exposés by InsideClimate News
and the Los Angeles Times

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revealed that for decades Exxon
concealed its own findings

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that fossil fuels
cause global warming, alter the climate

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and melt the Arctic ice.

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Exxon scientists’ earliest known
warnings on climate change date

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as far back as 1977.

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Toward the end of the 1980s,

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the company radically changed course
and openly embraced climate denial.

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Since then,
it has spent millions of dollars

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funding efforts
to reject the climate science

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its own experts once advanced.

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Still, even as it spread climate doubt

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and lobbied
against environmental regulation,

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Exxon’s denial wasn’t across the board.

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In internal planning kept from
the public, the oil giant’s researchers

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and engineers incorporated

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climate change projections to determine
how best to adapt their operations

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to a warming planet.

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AMY GOODMAN: The bombshell news
of Exxon’s climate deception

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is now sparking calls
for a federal investigation.

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On Tuesday, presidential candidate

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Senator Bernie Sanders
wrote to Attorney General Loretta Lynch

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urging a Department
of Justice probe of Exxon.

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Another Democratic hopeful,

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former Maryland Governor
Martin O’Malley, tweeted,

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quote, "We held tobacco companies
responsible for lying about cancer.

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Let’s do the same
for oil companies & climate change."

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Two House Democrats from California,

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Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier,
also want a DOJ probe.

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In a letter to Lynch, they write,

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quote, "If these allegations
against Exxon are true,

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then Exxon’s actions were immoral.

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We request the DOJ investigate whether
ExxonMobil’s actions were also illegal."

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On Tuesday, the prosecutor

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who won the massive 2006 racketeering
case against Big Tobacco

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for hiding the dangers
of smoking agreed.

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Sharon Eubanks,

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a former Justice Department attorney
now in private practice,

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told ThinkProgress, quote,

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"It appears to me ...

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that there was a concerted effort
by Exxon and others

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to confuse the public on climate change.

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They were actively denying the impact
of human-caused carbon emissions,

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even when their own research
showed otherwise.

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... I think a RICO action
is plausible and should be considered."

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We’re joined now by two guests:

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Democratic Congressmember Ted Lieu
of California,

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who co-signed that letter
calling for a federal probe of Exxon,

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and Bill McKibben,
co-founder of 350.org,

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one of the nation’s leading
environmental activist groups.

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His recent piece for The Nation
is "Exxon Knew Everything

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There Was to Know About Climate Change
by the Mid-1980s—

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and Denied It.

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" McKibben was just arrested last week

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after staging a one-man protest
at a local Exxon station,

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in protest of Exxon’s climate denial.

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He held a sign reading,

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"This pump temporarily closed
because ExxonMobil lied about climate."

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We welcome you both to Democracy Now!

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Congressmember Lieu,

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we’ll start with you.

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Talk about what you’re
calling for right now.

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REP. TED LIEU: If the facts are true,

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I believe Exxon’s actions
are shocking and outrageous.

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And it’s difficult to think of a company

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that could have set back humanity
for decades,

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and perhaps permanently,

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but that’s what happened here.

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In this case, Exxon scientists
knew that climate change was happening,

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that fossil fuels
were causing climate change,

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and not only did they deny that
and spread uncertainty and confusion

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about the science,

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they then took actions to plan
and take advantage of global warming.

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This is beyond hypocrisy.

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I’m not even sure what to call it.

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But I do believe
there should be investigation

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under the RICO racketeering statutes
of the federal government

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to see if they should be prosecuted
for their actions.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Congressman Lieu,

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what most stunned you in terms
of the information

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that’s come out now
in the recent exposés?

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REP. TED LIEU: That their scientists
were on the cutting edge

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of research on climate science,

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that they had done tremendous work,

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that they confirmed
global warming was happening,

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and then top executives
essentially shut that down

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and embarked on a disinformation

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and confusion campaign
simply for profits, at the same time

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knowing that this could really
damage all of humanity.

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And to me, just how shocking this
was really was what stood out to me.

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AMY GOODMAN: A recent investigative
series by the Pulitzer Prize-winning

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news organization,

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[InsideClimateNews.org],

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has uncovered that decades

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ago Exxon was actually
on the cutting edge of climate research.

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This is a clip
from the PBS series Frontline,

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which partnered with InsideClimate News
on the project.

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NEELA BANERJEE: We found the trail
of documents that go back to 1977.

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Exxon knew carbon dioxide
was increasing in the atmosphere,

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that combustion
of fossil fuel is driving it,

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and that this posed a threat to Exxon.

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At that time, Exxon
understood very quickly that governments

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would probably take action
to reduce fossil fuel consumption.

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They’re smart people, great scientists,

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and they saw the writing on the wall.

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NARRATION: One Exxon research project
outfitted an oil tanker

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with equipment to measure CO2 levels
in the atmosphere and the ocean.

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ED GARVEY: We were collecting data,
the southern Atlantic,

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the Gulf of Mexico
and the western Indian Ocean.

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Basically every hour,
we would get several measurements.

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So we had—

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I called it a data monster.

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NARRATION: Today Exxon says the study
had nothing to do with CO2 emissions.

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But scientists
involved remember it differently.

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ED GARVEY: We were committed.
We were doing some serious science.

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It was a significant budget,

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I would say on the scale
of a million dollars a year.

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I mean, that was a lot of money in 1979.

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AMY GOODMAN: That was Ed Garvey.

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From 1978 to 1983,
he was a researcher at Exxon,

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where he helped start the company’s
greenhouse gas research program.

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Last month,
he appeared on Democracy Now!

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and talked about how he felt when Exxon
started funding climate deniers.

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ED GARVEY: I just think
it was an opportunity that was missed,

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that having developed
this knowledge in-house,

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Exxon was in position
to lead the discussion

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as how to deal with the problem,

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and instead they really chose
to deny the problem.

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And I think that was really
a missed opportunity.

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AMY GOODMAN: Again,
that was Exxon scientist Ed Garvey,

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which brings us to Bill McKibben, who—

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well, Bill, it’s nice
that you’re back home

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after your arrest
at your local Exxon station

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for protesting the information—

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protesting what you’ve learned

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from the information that’s come out
in both the Los Angeles Times series

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as well as InsideClimate [News].

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Talk about what has most surprised you.

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I mean, you’re hard to surprise.

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You’ve been working on this issue
for years now.

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What is most chilling,

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if you will, in these documents
that have been released?

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BILL McKIBBEN: For me, Amy, the thing
that really gets me is the kind

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of realization that Exxon
is probably the one institution

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on Earth that could have short-circuited
this 25 years of pretend, faux debate

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that we’ve been
having about climate change.

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If in 1989,

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when Jim Hansen from NASA
had stood up before Congress

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and said, "Yeah, the planet is warming,

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" if Exxon at that point had said,

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"You know what? He’s right.

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Our internal science,
which is very strong in this field,

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confirms everything that he’s saying.

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The world has a terrific problem," well,

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we wouldn’t have solved global warming
by now,

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but we’d be well on the way.

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We would not have engaged in
a quarter-century of denial and debate.

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Instead, that’s precisely
what Exxon funded and underwrote.

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The most compelling moment
of that probably came in, I think,

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1997, when the CEO of Exxon stood up
before the most powerful people in China

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and told them that the planet
was probably cooling

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and that the computer models,

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which Exxon was using
at that very moment

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to guide their own investments—

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he told them
the computer models didn’t work.

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This was tragic.

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And the results we now—

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Bill,
if I can interrupt a second,

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we have a clip from 1996,

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around that time,
of the Exxon CEO, Lee Raymond,

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speaking about global warming.

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Let’s hear that.

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LEE RAYMOND: Proponents
of the global warming theory

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say that higher levels
of greenhouse gases

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are causing world temperatures to rise

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and that burning fossil fuels
is the reason.

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The scientific evidence

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remains inconclusive
as to whether human activities

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affect the global climate. ...

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Many scientists agree there’s ample time
to better understand climate systems

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and consider policy options.

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So there’s simply no reason
to take drastic action now.

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AMY GOODMAN: We’re going
to go to Bill McKibben for his response,

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as well as Congressmember Ted Lieu.

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This is Democracy Now!

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We’ll go to them in a minute.

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[break]

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AMY GOODMAN: "Global Warming," recorded
in 2009 by a group of musicians

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from the small island nation of Tuvalu,

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a country already threatened
by climate change.

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This is Democracy Now!,
democracynow.org,

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The War and Peace Report.

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I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

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Our guests are 350.org

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co-founder Bill McKibben in Vermont,
at home

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00:21:51.060 --> 00:21:53.440
after his arrest
at his local Exxon station

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for saying that Exxon lied,

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and Los Angeles Congressmember Ted Lieu.

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Juan?

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Bill McKibben,
before the break,

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we were playing that clip
of the speech from the Exxon CEO.

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00:22:08.040 --> 00:22:14.780
Looking back at that now,
and also thinking about the reality

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that in a few weeks
there will be a new round

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00:22:17.800 --> 00:22:20.090
of international climate change talks
in Paris,

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00:22:20.090 --> 00:22:23.060
the impact of this scandal
coming at this time?

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BILL McKIBBEN: Well, look,
the impact of what Exxon did

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has played out over 25 years
and will play out over geologic time.

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There’s 47 people
dead in the Philippines today

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after the record 20th strong typhoon
in the Northern Hemisphere

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00:22:38.760 --> 00:22:41.900
dropped four feet
of rain—almost unimaginable—

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across the Philippines.

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00:22:43.590 --> 00:22:46.200
But something
like that happens every day now.

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We’ve melted the Arctic.

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We’ve changed the chemistry
of the oceans.

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This is their legacy.

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As we move forward,

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still trying to keep this from getting
any more out of control than it is,

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it’s going to be incredibly important

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00:23:01.410 --> 00:23:04.490
to break the power
of the fossil fuel industry.

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00:23:04.490 --> 00:23:07.370
That’s why there’s
this huge divestment campaign,

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00:23:07.370 --> 00:23:11.000
that California just
joined their retirement funds

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00:23:11.000 --> 00:23:12.440
in participating in.

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That will help begin
to break their power.

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That’s why we do things
like fight pipelines

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and fracking wells and things,
to try and reduce their power.

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But, man, if only they
had told the truth to begin with.

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That’s why—I mean,

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I went to get arrested just because I
was afraid that these remarkable exposés

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at InsideClimate News and the L.A. Times

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would disappear
into the media clutter of our lives.

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This is one of the,
if not the most important,

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investigative coups in decades.

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And these reporters’ remarkable

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work deserves to become part of the kind

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of common understanding of the entire
planet about the most significant crisis

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human beings have ever wandered into.

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AMY GOODMAN: Well, Bill,
can you explain exactly what you did?

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This action was what?

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00:24:03.370 --> 00:24:04.800
Last Thursday?

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BILL McKIBBEN: It was last week.

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Amy, it was not—this was, you know,

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not the bridge at Selma.

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You know, I just sat down in front
of the ExxonMobil station,

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not far away in Vermont,

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and with a very kind owner,

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who I was not trying
to cause problems to—in fact,

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I gave him a hundred bucks
to make up for any income

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he might have lost
while I was blocking his pump.

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And eventually the police
came and took me away

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and charged me with trespass.

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00:24:36.620 --> 00:24:38.820
And all it was, you know,

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00:24:38.820 --> 00:24:42.950
as I said at the time, was an effort
to get people to read these stories.

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I’m not sure how well it worked.

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But later that day, my wife

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told me that it had been the number
one trending thing on Facebook,

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but then, you know,
a couple hours later,

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she told me it had been replaced
by a video of a Corgi dog barking

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00:24:58.780 --> 00:25:00.050
at a miniature pumpkin.

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00:25:00.050 --> 00:25:02.300
So, you know, who knows?

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00:25:02.300 --> 00:25:05.290
But we’re going to do everything we can,

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00:25:05.290 --> 00:25:07.900
everyone who’s working on these issues,

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to try and make sure
that this doesn’t somehow disappear.

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Such gratitude

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00:25:15.170 --> 00:25:16.370
to the congressman

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and his colleague in California,

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and, of course, to Bernie Sanders,

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for pressing hard
for what needs to happen next,

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which is a full-on investigation

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00:25:26.900 --> 00:25:28.270
by our Department of Justice—

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and by the departments
of justice all over the world—

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into the conduct of this, remember,

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largest corporation in the world.

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00:25:37.290 --> 00:25:40.840
Exxon has made more money
three of the last four years

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00:25:40.840 --> 00:25:43.650
than any company
in the history of money, OK?

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00:25:43.650 --> 00:25:48.480
So, it’s not like this is some small
exception or some outlier or whatever.

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This is the dead-on heart
of the fossil fuel industry,

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the people who have done everything

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they can to keep us
from addressing climate change.

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JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I’d like to—
you mentioned Congressman Lieu.

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I’d like to bring him back
into the conversation.

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00:26:01.350 --> 00:26:03.820
A spokesman for Exxon, Richard Keil,

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has rejected the allegations
contained in Congressman Lieu

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and—

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00:26:09.710 --> 00:26:12.170
in his letter
to the Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

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Keil told The Guardian, quote,

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"This is complete bull-[bleep].

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We have a 30 year
continuous uninterrupted history

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00:26:19.630 --> 00:26:21.350
of researching climate change

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00:26:21.350 --> 00:26:25.410
and the LA Times for whatever reason
chose to ignore that fact."

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00:26:25.410 --> 00:26:28.210
Meanwhile, Exxon continues
to demand favors from the government,

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00:26:28.210 --> 00:26:30.710
most recently a lifting
of the long-standing ban

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00:26:30.710 --> 00:26:33.440
on exporting American crude.

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00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:36.520
Exxon’s vice president
for public and governmental affairs,

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00:26:36.520 --> 00:26:38.580
Kenneth Cohen, told The New York Times,

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00:26:38.580 --> 00:26:41.290
quote, "The sooner this happens,
the better for us."

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00:26:41.800 --> 00:26:47.500
Congressman Lieu, your reaction
to the Exxon response to your letter?

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00:26:48.040 --> 00:26:51.500
REP. TED LIEU: The ExxonMobil
spokesperson is out of his mind.

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00:26:51.500 --> 00:26:55.210
He must not have read
what his top executives were saying.

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00:26:55.210 --> 00:26:59.780
Exxon appears now to be denying
that they were denying climate change.

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00:26:59.780 --> 00:27:04.740
And if you look at what your clips
had shown, that’s simply not history.

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00:27:04.740 --> 00:27:08.450
And I want to thank Bill McKibben for
his tremendous environmental activism.

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00:27:08.450 --> 00:27:10.290
And what Bill said is correct:

491
00:27:10.290 --> 00:27:14.920
There is an issue here not
just of taking carbon out of the air—

492
00:27:14.920 --> 00:27:16.860
it’s a race.

493
00:27:16.860 --> 00:27:19.760
We need to take greenhouse gases
out of the air quickly,

494
00:27:19.760 --> 00:27:22.110
because at some point
we’re going to cross a line—

495
00:27:22.110 --> 00:27:23.830
and we may have already crossed it—

496
00:27:23.830 --> 00:27:27.360
where it’s going to be very hard to
reverse the effects of climate change.

497
00:27:27.360 --> 00:27:29.630
And Exxon scientists knew that.

498
00:27:29.630 --> 00:27:32.510
They said that there were going
to be catastrophic effects

499
00:27:32.510 --> 00:27:34.560
if we don’t stop this quickly.

500
00:27:34.560 --> 00:27:36.980
AMY GOODMAN: You know,
this L.A. Times piece,

501
00:27:36.980 --> 00:27:39.020
in addition to the InsideClimate [News]

502
00:27:39.020 --> 00:27:41.410
piece, is fascinating, "What Exxon Knew

503
00:27:41.410 --> 00:27:43.450
About the Earth’s Melting Climate"—

504
00:27:43.450 --> 00:27:45.890
"About the Earth’s Melting Arctic."

505
00:27:45.890 --> 00:27:47.540
And it says, "Ken Croasdale,

506
00:27:47.540 --> 00:27:50.870
senior ice researcher
for Exxon’s Canadian subsidiary,

507
00:27:50.870 --> 00:27:54.940
was leading a ... team
of researchers and engineers

508
00:27:54.940 --> 00:27:57.760
that was trying to determine
how global warming could affect Exxon’s

509
00:27:57.760 --> 00:28:00.620
Arctic operations
and its bottom line."

510
00:28:00.620 --> 00:28:03.680
It says, from '86 to ’92,

511
00:28:03.680 --> 00:28:06.890
"Croasdale's team looked at
both the positive and negative effects

512
00:28:06.890 --> 00:28:09.950
that a warming Arctic
would have on oil operations,

513
00:28:09.950 --> 00:28:12.490
reporting its findings
to Exxon headquarters in Houston

514
00:28:12.490 --> 00:28:13.600
and New Jersey.

515
00:28:13.600 --> 00:28:16.680
The good news for Exxon, he
told an audience of academics

516
00:28:16.680 --> 00:28:19.070
and government researchers in 1992,

517
00:28:19.070 --> 00:28:23.690
was that 'potential global warming
can only help lower exploration

518
00:28:23.690 --> 00:28:26.810
and development costs'
in the Beaufort Sea.

519
00:28:27.350 --> 00:28:31.840
But, he added, it also posed hazards,
including higher sea levels

520
00:28:31.840 --> 00:28:32.900
and bigger waves,

521
00:28:32.900 --> 00:28:36.280
which could damage the company’s
existing and future coastal

522
00:28:36.280 --> 00:28:38.050
and offshore infrastructure,

523
00:28:38.050 --> 00:28:40.500
including drilling platforms,
artificial islands,

524
00:28:40.500 --> 00:28:42.400
processing plants and pump stations.

525
00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:45.740
And a thawing earth could be troublesome
for those facilities

526
00:28:45.740 --> 00:28:46.810
as well as pipelines."

527
00:28:46.810 --> 00:28:48.150
Now, Congressmember Lieu,

528
00:28:48.150 --> 00:28:49.150
this is fascinating.

529
00:28:49.150 --> 00:28:52.160
It could benefit Exxon
because the global warming

530
00:28:52.160 --> 00:28:55.820
would melt the Arctic ice
and open up the window

531
00:28:55.820 --> 00:28:59.540
for them to drill, what,
three, four, five months.

532
00:28:59.540 --> 00:29:02.810
But, of course,
it could also damage them severely.

533
00:29:03.970 --> 00:29:05.980
REP. TED LIEU: I believe
there needs to be a new word

534
00:29:05.980 --> 00:29:09.090
in the English language
created for what Exxon did.

535
00:29:09.090 --> 00:29:12.630
They confirmed climate change
was happening with their scientists,

536
00:29:12.630 --> 00:29:14.780
then their top executives
denied it,

537
00:29:14.780 --> 00:29:16.810
and then they planned to take advantage
of it.

538
00:29:16.810 --> 00:29:18.910
That is way beyond hypocrisy.

539
00:29:18.910 --> 00:29:21.440
They were doing
all of this in the name of profits,

540
00:29:21.440 --> 00:29:23.370
and they set back humanity—

541
00:29:23.370 --> 00:29:25.610
and may have, in fact, doomed humanity.

542
00:29:25.610 --> 00:29:27.500
This is just one company.

543
00:29:27.500 --> 00:29:30.900
And it’s just very shocking
that they did that.

544
00:29:30.900 --> 00:29:33.870
AMY GOODMAN: So let’s talk
about the parallels to Big Tobacco,

545
00:29:34.410 --> 00:29:39.310
what exactly a Justice Department
investigation would mean.

546
00:29:39.840 --> 00:29:44.940
Bill McKibben has said no corporation
has ever done anything this big

547
00:29:44.940 --> 00:29:46.040
and this bad.

548
00:29:46.040 --> 00:29:49.330
Congressmember Lieu,
explain what happens if,

549
00:29:49.330 --> 00:29:52.110
as you’re calling for
and the presidential candidate

550
00:29:52.110 --> 00:29:54.160
Bernie Sanders is demanding,

551
00:29:54.160 --> 00:29:58.950
an actual investigation
into Big Oil, into Exxon.

552
00:29:58.950 --> 00:30:01.740
REP. TED LIEU: Well, I think it’s
tremendous that the former Department

553
00:30:01.740 --> 00:30:05.130
of Justice prosecutor
who went after Big Tobacco—

554
00:30:05.130 --> 00:30:08.240
and won—now believes
that the Department of Justice

555
00:30:08.240 --> 00:30:11.650
should do an investigation
of ExxonMobil and Big Oil.

556
00:30:11.650 --> 00:30:13.340
And what happened with tobacco

557
00:30:13.340 --> 00:30:15.190
is the federal government used

558
00:30:15.190 --> 00:30:16.790
what’s called the RICO statute—

559
00:30:16.790 --> 00:30:18.510
it’s a racketeering statute—

560
00:30:18.510 --> 00:30:20.580
and they went after tobacco companies

561
00:30:20.580 --> 00:30:25.790
for knowing that tobacco products
were causing cancer and killing people,

562
00:30:25.790 --> 00:30:29.240
and then denying
that was happening, making profits from

563
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:30.700
the products that they were selling.

564
00:30:30.700 --> 00:30:33.850
There’s a very good parallel here
with what Exxon did.

565
00:30:33.850 --> 00:30:37.650
They knew that fossil fuels
were causing global warming,

566
00:30:37.650 --> 00:30:40.240
then their top executives
denied the science,

567
00:30:40.240 --> 00:30:41.850
spread uncertainty about it,

568
00:30:41.850 --> 00:30:43.370
and they profited from that.

569
00:30:43.370 --> 00:30:47.340
And I think the Department of Justice
should investigate and then prosecute,

570
00:30:47.340 --> 00:30:49.330
if the facts warrant prosecution.

571
00:30:49.330 --> 00:30:50.700
AMY GOODMAN: Exxon officials go to jail?

572
00:30:52.180 --> 00:30:54.810
REP. TED LIEU: It would depend
on what the investigation shows.

573
00:30:54.810 --> 00:30:57.410
But, you know,
setting back humanity for decades,

574
00:30:57.410 --> 00:31:00.670
and maybe permanently,
seems like a pretty high crime to me.

575
00:31:01.230 --> 00:31:02.250
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, well, certainly,

576
00:31:02.250 --> 00:31:05.510
any kind
of a Justice Department investigation

577
00:31:05.510 --> 00:31:10.340
or even civil lawsuits
that might arise in the future

578
00:31:10.340 --> 00:31:13.730
would have the benefit of discovery,

579
00:31:13.730 --> 00:31:18.170
of being able to get
at the internal records of Exxon,

580
00:31:18.170 --> 00:31:21.780
in terms
of what the—what the executives knew,

581
00:31:21.780 --> 00:31:24.640
when they knew it,
and what they did specifically.

582
00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:26.830
Bill McKibben, the prospects of that?

583
00:31:28.610 --> 00:31:32.010
BILL McKIBBEN: Good reporters were able
to get this much from the outside.

584
00:31:32.590 --> 00:31:33.940
You’re absolutely right, Juan.

585
00:31:33.940 --> 00:31:35.330
It’s the—

586
00:31:35.330 --> 00:31:38.430
that depositions
and that discovery process

587
00:31:38.930 --> 00:31:43.430
will bring to light things
that we need to know,

588
00:31:43.430 --> 00:31:44.980
that we deserve to know.

589
00:31:44.980 --> 00:31:46.560
This is like tobacco, but,

590
00:31:46.560 --> 00:31:49.300
in a sense, it’s much, much larger.

591
00:31:49.300 --> 00:31:52.570
You never had to go near a gas pump

592
00:31:52.570 --> 00:31:57.910
to be the victim
of this particular deception.

593
00:31:57.910 --> 00:32:00.840
If you live in some island
in the Pacific,

594
00:32:00.840 --> 00:32:02.990
if you live in Tuvalu or Vanuatu;

595
00:32:02.990 --> 00:32:04.690
or in the Maldives in the Indian Ocean;

596
00:32:04.690 --> 00:32:07.290
if you live on low ground in Bangladesh;

597
00:32:07.290 --> 00:32:10.690
if you live in the sub-Saharan Africa,

598
00:32:10.690 --> 00:32:12.290
where drought is now spreading;

599
00:32:12.290 --> 00:32:14.300
or in the Fertile Crescent,

600
00:32:14.300 --> 00:32:17.040
not so fertile anymore as it dries out;

601
00:32:17.910 --> 00:32:19.820
if you lived in Pakistan,

602
00:32:19.820 --> 00:32:22.230
where we saw the most epic flooding

603
00:32:22.230 --> 00:32:24.150
the world has ever seen in 2010;

604
00:32:24.150 --> 00:32:25.460
if you live in California,

605
00:32:25.460 --> 00:32:29.420
where we’re now ping-ponging
between severe drought

606
00:32:29.420 --> 00:32:31.830
and once-in-a-thousand-year
rainfall events

607
00:32:31.830 --> 00:32:34.230
that are plugging the highways
with mudflows—

608
00:32:35.230 --> 00:32:38.520
any of these places and a million more,

609
00:32:38.520 --> 00:32:46.970
then you should have standing to say
what Exxon did is deeply wrong.

610
00:32:46.970 --> 00:32:54.340
And we need to demand that they be
somehow made to be part of the solution.

611
00:32:54.340 --> 00:32:57.940
They shouldn’t be asking
for more favors, more subsidies,

612
00:32:57.940 --> 00:33:00.430
more lifting of the oil export ban.

613
00:33:00.980 --> 00:33:05.920
Instead, we should be figuring out
how to make sure that they and the rest

614
00:33:05.920 --> 00:33:09.530
of Big Oil use the money

615
00:33:09.530 --> 00:33:14.290
that they’ve piled up
to help fund the transition quickly

616
00:33:14.290 --> 00:33:15.640
to renewable energy,

617
00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:19.840
a transition that would have happened
long ago without them in the way,

618
00:33:19.840 --> 00:33:22.190
without them dominating
our political lives.

619
00:33:22.190 --> 00:33:24.380
AMY GOODMAN: Bill McKibben,
if you could comment quickly,

620
00:33:24.380 --> 00:33:25.920
before we go to Congressmember Lieu

621
00:33:25.920 --> 00:33:27.160
on another issue,

622
00:33:27.160 --> 00:33:28.560
on two developments?

623
00:33:28.560 --> 00:33:33.710
Friday, the Obama administration
quietly said they will no longer

624
00:33:33.710 --> 00:33:36.150
issue leases for drilling in the Arctic.

625
00:33:36.150 --> 00:33:38.230
You know, Shell had said
they’re going to stop,

626
00:33:38.230 --> 00:33:41.790
but then the Obama administration
said this, number one.

627
00:33:41.790 --> 00:33:45.610
And, two, the victory
of Justin Trudeau,

628
00:33:45.610 --> 00:33:49.520
the new prime minister-designate
of Canada,

629
00:33:49.520 --> 00:33:52.360
his support for the Keystone XL,

630
00:33:52.360 --> 00:33:53.760
what that means?

631
00:33:53.760 --> 00:33:56.040
But start with the Obama administration.

632
00:33:56.040 --> 00:33:58.630
BILL McKIBBEN: So, in the Arctic, look,

633
00:33:58.630 --> 00:34:02.230
what a victory for brave activists,

634
00:34:02.230 --> 00:34:04.890
especially in the Northwest,
those kayaktivists,

635
00:34:04.890 --> 00:34:06.430
whose pictures you showed,

636
00:34:06.430 --> 00:34:08.970
blocking the harbors
in Portland and Seattle.

637
00:34:08.970 --> 00:34:12.040
Shell claimed that they
didn’t find much oil in the Arctic.

638
00:34:12.040 --> 00:34:15.170
What they really found was way more
trouble than they bargained for.

639
00:34:15.820 --> 00:34:17.910
As for Canada, the election results,

640
00:34:17.910 --> 00:34:21.140
I mean, who knows exactly effect
it will have on Keystone?

641
00:34:21.140 --> 00:34:24.730
But it must be said
that in the last seven or eight weeks,

642
00:34:24.730 --> 00:34:27.910
the two most
fossil-fueled Western leaders,

643
00:34:27.910 --> 00:34:31.660
Tony Abbott in Australia
and Stephen Harper in Canada,

644
00:34:31.660 --> 00:34:33.020
are out on their ear.

645
00:34:33.820 --> 00:34:38.410
It’s not as if, you know,
all our problems are solved by that,

646
00:34:38.410 --> 00:34:42.780
but it’s a pretty good sign
of where the momentum suddenly is.

647
00:34:44.170 --> 00:34:46.430
I don’t think that—

648
00:34:46.430 --> 00:34:50.290
just as the Arctic isn’t going
to be fully developed for oil,

649
00:34:50.290 --> 00:34:54.210
I don’t think that those expansion plans
for the tar sands,

650
00:34:54.210 --> 00:34:57.140
where they were going to double
and triple and quadruple production,

651
00:34:57.140 --> 00:34:59.120
I don’t think
they look very healthy today, either.

652
00:34:59.950 --> 00:35:03.410
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And before we end,
I’d like to ask—switch topics

653
00:35:03.410 --> 00:35:06.180
and ask Congressman Lieu
about another subject,

654
00:35:06.180 --> 00:35:09.280
about the Saudi-led war in Yemen.

655
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:14.440
The Obama administration
has just approved an $11.25 billion deal

656
00:35:14.440 --> 00:35:15.880
to sell four advanced,

657
00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:18.860
Lockheed Martin-made warships
to Saudi Arabia.

658
00:35:18.860 --> 00:35:22.480
The move comes as Amnesty International
has called on the United States

659
00:35:22.480 --> 00:35:24.410
to halt arms transfers

660
00:35:24.410 --> 00:35:29.120
to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit
in war crimes in Yemen,

661
00:35:29.120 --> 00:35:32.530
where the Saudis
are waging a U.S.-backed campaign

662
00:35:32.530 --> 00:35:33.970
against Houthi rebels.

663
00:35:33.970 --> 00:35:38.550
Congressman Lieu, you recently co-wrote
a letter to President Obama about Yemen.

664
00:35:40.310 --> 00:35:43.400
REP. TED LIEU: I wrote a letter,
and then I co-signed a second letter,

665
00:35:43.400 --> 00:35:47.750
because the Saudi Arabia-led coalition
are conducting airstrikes

666
00:35:47.750 --> 00:35:49.520
that are killing civilians.

667
00:35:49.520 --> 00:35:52.290
There has been repeated instances
of bombs

668
00:35:52.290 --> 00:35:56.320
dropping on civilian targets
nowhere near military targets.

669
00:35:56.320 --> 00:35:57.940
Thousands of civilians have died,

670
00:35:57.940 --> 00:36:00.190
and I want to know
why that is happening

671
00:36:00.190 --> 00:36:02.560
and why is the U.S.
assisting this coalition

672
00:36:02.560 --> 00:36:06.060
and not stopping these attacks
from happening on civilians.

673
00:36:07.340 --> 00:36:11.310
AMY GOODMAN: And what you feel should
happen in Syria, Congressmember Lieu?

674
00:36:12.730 --> 00:36:14.740
REP. TED LIEU: I think
we need a strategy.

675
00:36:14.740 --> 00:36:17.350
I would like to know what the end state

676
00:36:17.350 --> 00:36:20.300
is that the administration
wants to achieve.

677
00:36:20.300 --> 00:36:23.780
Until they present that to Congress
and the America people,

678
00:36:23.780 --> 00:36:26.780
I do not believe the U.S.
should be bombing in Syria.

679
00:36:26.780 --> 00:36:29.310
I believe we need to take
our limited resources

680
00:36:29.310 --> 00:36:32.700
and really help the refugees
that are fleeing Syria

681
00:36:32.700 --> 00:36:35.770
and help deal with that tremendous
humanitarian crisis.

682
00:36:36.310 --> 00:36:38.090
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you
both for being with us,

683
00:36:38.090 --> 00:36:39.370
Congressmember Ted Lieu,

684
00:36:39.370 --> 00:36:42.070
Democratic congressman from Los Angeles,

685
00:36:42.070 --> 00:36:43.500
and Bill McKibben,

686
00:36:43.500 --> 00:36:46.470
co-founder of 350.org.

687
00:36:46.470 --> 00:36:48.710
Bill, we’ll link to your piece
in The Nation,

688
00:36:48.710 --> 00:36:52.450
and we’ll also link to these two series,

689
00:36:52.450 --> 00:36:56.970
these stunning exposés
in both the Los Angeles Times

690
00:36:56.970 --> 00:37:00.080
as well as InsideClimate News.

691
00:37:00.590 --> 00:37:03.500
This is Democracy Now!,
democracynow.org,

692
00:37:03.500 --> 00:37:05.740
and that’s where we’ll link
to these articles.

693
00:37:05.740 --> 00:37:09.090
When we come back, The Prize.

694
00:37:09.090 --> 00:37:12.730
What happened to the $100 million

695
00:37:12.730 --> 00:37:18.140
that Mark Zuckerberg
gave to Newark, New Jersey, schools?

696
00:37:18.140 --> 00:37:19.740
Did the kids profit?

697
00:37:19.740 --> 00:37:20.760
Where did the money go?

698
00:37:20.760 --> 00:39:15.250
Stay with us.

699
00:39:15.850 --> 00:39:17.970
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The education system
of Newark, New Jersey,

700
00:39:17.970 --> 00:39:19.660
has faced years of crisis,

701
00:39:19.660 --> 00:39:22.350
with high dropout rates,
low-performing schools

702
00:39:22.350 --> 00:39:25.190
and a state takeover
dating back two decades.

703
00:39:25.190 --> 00:39:30.260
In 2010, an unlikely trio
emerged with a bold pledge to fix it.

704
00:39:30.260 --> 00:39:33.320
The three were
Republican Governor Chris Christie,

705
00:39:33.320 --> 00:39:38.830
Democratic Mayor of Newark Cory Booker
and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

706
00:39:38.830 --> 00:39:41.960
And they made their announcement
on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

707
00:39:42.690 --> 00:39:45.740
OPRAH WINFREY: Mayor Booker, for those
who don’t know, what’s the big news?

708
00:39:45.740 --> 00:39:47.690
MAYOR CORY BOOKER: Well, we’ve been
talking for quite some time

709
00:39:47.690 --> 00:39:50.270
about creating a bold new paradigm

710
00:39:50.270 --> 00:39:52.400
for educational excellence
in the country, to show the way,

711
00:39:52.400 --> 00:39:55.310
to put the people of the city
of Newark really in the driver’s seat

712
00:39:55.310 --> 00:39:56.360
and in the focal point,

713
00:39:56.360 --> 00:39:58.480
and to work to get all of the assets
and resources

714
00:39:58.480 --> 00:40:00.670
we need to give to them to succeed.

715
00:40:01.220 --> 00:40:03.340
OPRAH WINFREY: So, Governor Christie,
what are you committing to?

716
00:40:03.340 --> 00:40:04.570
What are you committing to?

717
00:40:04.570 --> 00:40:07.150
GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE: What I’m committing
to is changing the schools in the city

718
00:40:07.150 --> 00:40:10.350
where I was born and spent
the first years of my life.

719
00:40:10.350 --> 00:40:13.500
And Mayor Booker is going
to be the point person,

720
00:40:13.500 --> 00:40:14.630
our lead guy in Newark,

721
00:40:14.630 --> 00:40:17.240
in helping to develop
this entirely new plan

722
00:40:17.240 --> 00:40:21.660
of how to reform the education system
in Newark and create a national model.

723
00:40:21.660 --> 00:40:23.000
I’m empowering him to do that.

724
00:40:23.000 --> 00:40:26.230
I’m in charge of the public schools
in the city of Newark as governor.

725
00:40:26.230 --> 00:40:28.810
I’m going to empower Mayor Booker
to develop that plan

726
00:40:28.810 --> 00:40:29.920
and to implement it,

727
00:40:29.920 --> 00:40:33.000
with a superintendent of schools
that we’re going to pick together.

728
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:34.520
OPRAH WINFREY: I think
that is so fantastic.

729
00:40:35.470 --> 00:40:39.160
... So, Mr. Zuckerberg, what role
are you playing in all of this?

730
00:40:40.520 --> 00:40:41.690
Are the rumors true?

731
00:40:41.690 --> 00:40:43.830
Will there be a check
offered at some point?

732
00:40:43.830 --> 00:40:45.300
Yes.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: Well, yeah,

733
00:40:45.300 --> 00:40:49.900
I’ve committed to starting
the Startup:Education foundation,

734
00:40:49.900 --> 00:40:54.110
whose first project will be
a $100 million challenge grant for—

735
00:40:54.110 --> 00:40:56.010
OPRAH WINFREY: One hundred million
dollars.

736
00:40:56.010 --> 00:40:58.550
MARK ZUCKERBERG: A hundred million
dollars.

737
00:40:58.550 --> 00:41:01.670
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was a clip
from Oprah in 2010.

738
00:41:01.670 --> 00:41:05.850
But despite trumpeting their plan
as a model for national school reform,

739
00:41:05.850 --> 00:41:09.500
the story of what followed
emerges as a cautionary tale.

740
00:41:09.500 --> 00:41:11.650
With matching funds from other donors,

741
00:41:11.650 --> 00:41:14.720
millions of dollars
initially flowed not to the schools

742
00:41:14.720 --> 00:41:18.410
but to outside consultants,
most of them white and with no ties

743
00:41:18.410 --> 00:41:21.750
to Newark’s majority
African-American community.

744
00:41:21.750 --> 00:41:24.740
Some consultants made up
to $1,000 a day.

745
00:41:24.740 --> 00:41:27.560
AMY GOODMAN: Shunning input
from teachers, parents,

746
00:41:27.560 --> 00:41:29.090
community members, officials

747
00:41:29.090 --> 00:41:33.390
pushed a neoliberal education agenda
favored by Wall Street and lobby groups.

748
00:41:33.390 --> 00:41:36.080
Charter schools were radically expanded,

749
00:41:36.080 --> 00:41:39.400
and teachers were evaluated
by their students’ test scores.

750
00:41:39.400 --> 00:41:42.720
As charter school attendance doubled,
public schools were shuttered,

751
00:41:42.720 --> 00:41:46.360
and educators and support staff
lost their jobs.

752
00:41:46.360 --> 00:41:49.130
Neighborhood schooling was replaced
with a lottery system

753
00:41:49.130 --> 00:41:53.180
that divided families and forced
children into dangerous commutes.

754
00:41:53.180 --> 00:41:54.330
While some students

755
00:41:54.330 --> 00:41:57.880
benefited from placement
in the higher-funded charter schools,

756
00:41:57.880 --> 00:42:02.820
the Newark school system’s overall
performance level fell even lower.

757
00:42:02.820 --> 00:42:07.020
The author Dale Russakoff covered
the Newark education reform effort

758
00:42:07.020 --> 00:42:09.990
from the beginning
and recounts it in her new book,

759
00:42:09.990 --> 00:42:11.060
The Prize:

760
00:42:11.060 --> 00:42:13.410
Who’s in Charge
of America’s Schools?

761
00:42:13.920 --> 00:42:16.350
She was previously a reporter
at The Washington Post

762
00:42:16.350 --> 00:42:17.560
for 28 years,

763
00:42:17.560 --> 00:42:20.420
where she covered politics, education
and social policy.

764
00:42:20.420 --> 00:42:22.560
Dale Russakoff,
welcome to Democracy Now!

765
00:42:22.560 --> 00:42:23.780
It’s great to have you with us.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Thank you.

766
00:42:23.780 --> 00:42:26.850
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, this even
fits into presidential politics,

767
00:42:26.850 --> 00:42:29.070
and always, overall education policy,

768
00:42:29.070 --> 00:42:32.890
Chris Christie being one of
the Republican presidential candidates.

769
00:42:32.890 --> 00:42:36.450
But talk about just what happened,
from the beginning.

770
00:42:36.450 --> 00:42:38.880
OK, we just played the announcement
on Oprah.

771
00:42:38.880 --> 00:42:43.160
Mark Zuckerberg, $100 million
he’s giving to the Newark school system.

772
00:42:43.160 --> 00:42:44.760
What happened?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, well,

773
00:42:44.760 --> 00:42:46.710
Mark Zuckerberg did give $100 million,

774
00:42:46.710 --> 00:42:50.650
and Cory Booker and Chris Christie
did raise a second $100 million.

775
00:42:51.340 --> 00:42:57.130
And $60 million of it went to expand
the charter schools in Newark, which,

776
00:42:57.130 --> 00:42:58.710
unlike charter schools nationally,

777
00:42:58.710 --> 00:43:01.750
do outperform the district schools
significantly.

778
00:43:01.750 --> 00:43:05.350
So those children got, in many cases,
a much better opportunity.

779
00:43:05.350 --> 00:43:08.580
But the children who were
in the district schools did not benefit.

780
00:43:08.580 --> 00:43:09.610
And what they promised

781
00:43:09.610 --> 00:43:11.960
was that they weren’t just going
to expand charter schools,

782
00:43:11.960 --> 00:43:14.360
they were going to turn
all of the schools in Newark

783
00:43:14.360 --> 00:43:16.330
into high-performing schools.

784
00:43:17.380 --> 00:43:21.150
Cory Booker said he was going to create
a "hemisphere of hope" in Newark.

785
00:43:21.150 --> 00:43:22.790
And what’s happened
to the district schools,

786
00:43:22.790 --> 00:43:24.820
where 60 percent of the children go,

787
00:43:24.820 --> 00:43:26.430
is not a positive story.

788
00:43:26.430 --> 00:43:28.290
They’ve had, in every—

789
00:43:28.290 --> 00:43:30.910
every year since they brought
in the new superintendent,

790
00:43:30.910 --> 00:43:35.440
there’s been declines in reading
and math throughout the school district.

791
00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:38.460
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: But as Governor Christie
said in that Oprah clip,

792
00:43:38.460 --> 00:43:40.770
he’s in charge
of the Newark school system,

793
00:43:40.770 --> 00:43:44.850
because it’s been basically under state
receivership now for several decades,

794
00:43:44.850 --> 00:43:49.640
yet none of this seems to have
rubbed off on Governor Christie.

795
00:43:50.150 --> 00:43:52.940
DALE RUSSAKOFF: No, Governor Christie
seems to have basically,

796
00:43:52.940 --> 00:43:54.820
you know, washed his hands of it.

797
00:43:55.340 --> 00:44:00.120
Just when he started his campaign
on an intensive daily basis,

798
00:44:00.120 --> 00:44:03.260
he moved out the superintendent,
who he had brought in,

799
00:44:03.260 --> 00:44:05.650
who had become the focus
of all of the controversy,

800
00:44:05.650 --> 00:44:07.410
brought in another—

801
00:44:07.410 --> 00:44:09.960
his former education commissioner
to run the show,

802
00:44:09.960 --> 00:44:11.820
and announced that he is going
to return,

803
00:44:11.820 --> 00:44:13.760
over the course of the next few years,

804
00:44:13.760 --> 00:44:15.110
maybe within a year—

805
00:44:15.110 --> 00:44:16.450
return control of the district,

806
00:44:16.450 --> 00:44:18.640
after all these years,
to the Newark voters.

807
00:44:19.880 --> 00:44:24.360
AMY GOODMAN: This also is a story
about the education of Mark Zuckerberg.

808
00:44:24.360 --> 00:44:26.150
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain

809
00:44:26.150 --> 00:44:29.500
what he understood at the beginning
how the money would be used,

810
00:44:29.500 --> 00:44:33.420
and how involved he has been.

811
00:44:33.420 --> 00:44:36.180
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, I think that one
of the biggest surprises

812
00:44:36.180 --> 00:44:39.030
is that Mark Zuckerberg
came into this without doing a lot

813
00:44:39.030 --> 00:44:42.150
of due diligence about what was going
to happen with his money.

814
00:44:42.150 --> 00:44:46.950
The best you could say is
that Cory Booker swept him off his feet

815
00:44:46.950 --> 00:44:48.760
and told him that he—
AMY GOODMAN: How did they meet?

816
00:44:48.760 --> 00:44:51.530
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Oh, well,
they met at a retreat

817
00:44:51.530 --> 00:44:55.030
for billionaires and politicians
and celebrities,

818
00:44:55.030 --> 00:44:58.030
which is held every year in Sun Valley,

819
00:44:58.030 --> 00:45:00.010
Idaho. And—

820
00:45:00.010 --> 00:45:01.380
AMY GOODMAN: The retreat is called?
DALE RUSSAKOFF: It’s—

821
00:45:01.900 --> 00:45:03.540
AMY GOODMAN: It doesn’t have a name?

822
00:45:03.540 --> 00:45:04.440
DALE RUSSAKOFF: I don’t think
it has a name.

823
00:45:04.440 --> 00:45:06.670
But it’s Herbert Allen,
the investment banker,

824
00:45:06.670 --> 00:45:07.950
sponsors it every year.

825
00:45:08.650 --> 00:45:12.360
And it just so happened
that they were both going, Booker

826
00:45:12.360 --> 00:45:17.640
as a presenter and Zuckerberg
as a billionaire investor.

827
00:45:17.640 --> 00:45:20.480
And it was the first time
for both of them.

828
00:45:20.480 --> 00:45:24.100
And they met, and Cory Booker knew
that Zuckerberg was going to be there,

829
00:45:24.100 --> 00:45:28.370
and he knew also that Zuckerberg
was contemplating, at age 26,

830
00:45:28.370 --> 00:45:30.190
his first act as a philanthropist

831
00:45:30.190 --> 00:45:33.860
and that he wanted to do something,
quote, "big," unquote, in education.

832
00:45:33.860 --> 00:45:36.490
And Booker persuaded him
that this was something

833
00:45:36.490 --> 00:45:37.980
that he should invest his money in,

834
00:45:37.980 --> 00:45:41.350
that Newark was on the verge
of a revolutionary change in education

835
00:45:41.350 --> 00:45:44.070
and that his $100 million
could make a big difference.

836
00:45:44.070 --> 00:45:47.290
So, there really wasn’t
a tremendous amount of due diligence.

837
00:45:47.290 --> 00:45:50.910
The way that Booker
presented it to him was almost like,

838
00:45:50.910 --> 00:45:52.760
you know, a startup of a tech company,

839
00:45:52.760 --> 00:45:55.700
that we’ll have a proof point in Newark,

840
00:45:55.700 --> 00:45:57.540
we’ll find just five or six things

841
00:45:57.540 --> 00:46:00.240
that we can do here
that will transform education,

842
00:46:00.240 --> 00:46:02.580
and then we can take it to every city
in the country,

843
00:46:02.580 --> 00:46:05.320
every inner city
that has struggling schools,

844
00:46:05.320 --> 00:46:07.680
and that Zuckerberg,
as a philanthropist,

845
00:46:07.680 --> 00:46:10.500
could spend the rest
of his philanthropic life

846
00:46:10.500 --> 00:46:12.660
changing urban schools for the better.

847
00:46:12.660 --> 00:46:14.180
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you talk a lot about—

848
00:46:14.180 --> 00:46:16.200
in the book,
about how this was an attempt,

849
00:46:16.200 --> 00:46:19.120
as much of what’s happening in education

850
00:46:19.120 --> 00:46:22.630
is today, of reform from the top down—
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes.

851
00:46:22.630 --> 00:46:24.730
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: —of a few people
coming up with a plan,

852
00:46:24.730 --> 00:46:28.200
finding the finances
and then imposing their will on every—

853
00:46:28.200 --> 00:46:30.170
all the other stakeholders
in the system.

854
00:46:30.170 --> 00:46:32.220
Could you talk about
how that played out in Newark?

855
00:46:32.220 --> 00:46:33.430
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes. Well, you know,

856
00:46:33.430 --> 00:46:36.070
it sounded like it
would play out pretty easily,

857
00:46:36.070 --> 00:46:39.340
because Chris Christie,
as the governor, controlled the schools.

858
00:46:39.340 --> 00:46:42.920
The governor had controlled the schools
for, at that point, 15 years,

859
00:46:42.920 --> 00:46:46.010
because there had been
a state takeover in 1995

860
00:46:46.010 --> 00:46:50.400
after findings of rampant corruption
and terrible neglect of students.

861
00:46:50.400 --> 00:46:54.740
So—but the state had not really
improved the situation in Newark.

862
00:46:54.740 --> 00:46:57.350
Nonetheless, they thought
that they had all the power

863
00:46:57.350 --> 00:46:59.210
they needed to bring this about.

864
00:46:59.210 --> 00:47:01.310
But what happened was, this was—

865
00:47:01.310 --> 00:47:03.540
I mean, in Booker and Christie

866
00:47:03.540 --> 00:47:06.870
and Zuckerberg’s view,
it was important to bypass the people

867
00:47:06.870 --> 00:47:08.700
and bypass the local power structure,

868
00:47:08.700 --> 00:47:12.930
because they felt the powers that be
would undermine education reform,

869
00:47:12.930 --> 00:47:16.870
because unions and political bosses
would try to defend the status quo.

870
00:47:16.870 --> 00:47:19.510
So their point was,
in the name of the children,

871
00:47:19.510 --> 00:47:22.020
we’re going to bypass
the democratic process.

872
00:47:22.020 --> 00:47:23.910
But what happened in Newark was that—

873
00:47:23.910 --> 00:47:26.150
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And—but also
bypass the parents of those children.

874
00:47:26.150 --> 00:47:27.810
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, exactly.
That’s what I was going to say,

875
00:47:27.810 --> 00:47:30.980
that it wasn’t just that they were
bypassing the unions and the bosses.

876
00:47:30.980 --> 00:47:33.160
The parents of the children of Newark

877
00:47:33.160 --> 00:47:36.250
found out about
this revolutionary change from Oprah,

878
00:47:36.250 --> 00:47:38.430
just the way
the national television audience did.

879
00:47:38.430 --> 00:47:42.750
There was no preparation
and no discussion, no input.

880
00:47:43.280 --> 00:47:45.150
And so, over—

881
00:47:45.150 --> 00:47:47.600
as the details began to come out,

882
00:47:47.600 --> 00:47:50.640
and they began to find out
what was going to happen in the way

883
00:47:50.640 --> 00:47:57.040
of school closings and layoffs
and children having to switch—

884
00:47:57.040 --> 00:47:59.300
you know, thousands
of children having to switch schools

885
00:47:59.300 --> 00:48:02.360
because their schools
were either closing or consolidating,

886
00:48:02.360 --> 00:48:06.140
it became just a grassroots revolution
almost.

887
00:48:06.140 --> 00:48:08.810
And I think that that’s the reason

888
00:48:08.810 --> 00:48:12.160
that Governor Christie wanted
to wash his hands of this whole thing,

889
00:48:12.160 --> 00:48:13.330
after having gone on Oprah

890
00:48:13.330 --> 00:48:16.060
and tried to sort of tout
it as a national model.

891
00:48:17.090 --> 00:48:23.650
And so, the political uprising
ended up almost, you know—

892
00:48:23.650 --> 00:48:24.870
well, not single-handedly,

893
00:48:24.870 --> 00:48:28.990
but significantly helping
to elect Ras Baraka,

894
00:48:28.990 --> 00:48:31.040
who was a high school principal,

895
00:48:31.040 --> 00:48:35.800
who ran for mayor almost exclusively
on a platform of stopping these reforms.

896
00:48:35.800 --> 00:48:39.550
And even though the education reform
movement put over $5 million

897
00:48:39.550 --> 00:48:41.130
into the campaign of his opponent,

898
00:48:41.130 --> 00:48:44.430
he won significantly, just because of
this grassroots uprising.

899
00:48:44.430 --> 00:48:46.890
So, it wasn’t just unions and bosses,

900
00:48:46.890 --> 00:48:48.780
it was parents and people in Newark

901
00:48:48.780 --> 00:48:50.120
who felt that they—

902
00:48:50.120 --> 00:48:52.930
you know, that somebody
who didn’t understand the children

903
00:48:52.930 --> 00:48:57.220
and whose interests they weren’t really
sure of was in charge of their schools.

904
00:48:57.220 --> 00:48:59.050
AMY GOODMAN: Has the money been spent?

905
00:48:59.050 --> 00:49:01.310
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Most of it has—
almost all of it has been spent.

906
00:49:01.310 --> 00:49:04.650
There’s actually $30 million
that hasn’t been spent,

907
00:49:04.650 --> 00:49:05.730
because what it was—

908
00:49:05.730 --> 00:49:07.350
it was raised and allocated

909
00:49:07.350 --> 00:49:10.140
for a principals’ contract
and for teacher—

910
00:49:10.140 --> 00:49:12.930
for buyouts of bad teachers,

911
00:49:12.930 --> 00:49:16.060
and neither of those things
came to pass.

912
00:49:16.060 --> 00:49:19.020
The principals and the district
never reached an agreement,

913
00:49:19.020 --> 00:49:21.350
and the buyouts never materialized.

914
00:49:21.350 --> 00:49:23.550
So there’s $30 million left.

915
00:49:23.550 --> 00:49:27.890
And it looks as if there may be
some kind of agreement

916
00:49:27.890 --> 00:49:31.540
between the Christie administration
and Ras Baraka to spend that—

917
00:49:31.540 --> 00:49:32.600
some of that money

918
00:49:32.600 --> 00:49:34.370
on creating community schools,

919
00:49:34.370 --> 00:49:35.510
which are schools

920
00:49:35.510 --> 00:49:38.900
that would have social services
not just for students,

921
00:49:38.900 --> 00:49:40.040
but also for adults

922
00:49:40.040 --> 00:49:41.130
and for neighborhoods,

923
00:49:41.130 --> 00:49:45.320
and that schools could be something
of a community center, you know,

924
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:47.870
after the school day
for children in the neighborhood.

925
00:49:47.870 --> 00:49:49.970
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you
about some of the key figures

926
00:49:49.970 --> 00:49:51.370
that were involved in this.

927
00:49:51.370 --> 00:49:53.900
A couple of them
actually worked for a time

928
00:49:53.900 --> 00:49:55.480
in the New York public school system—

929
00:49:55.480 --> 00:49:57.830
Chris Cerf and Cami Anderson.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes.

930
00:49:57.830 --> 00:50:00.650
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Their roles
and the internal battles

931
00:50:00.650 --> 00:50:05.590
and what happened to them as a result
of these parent uprisings?

932
00:50:05.590 --> 00:50:08.020
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, well,
Chris Cerf was the commissioner,

933
00:50:08.020 --> 00:50:11.650
the state commissioner of education,
who was in charge of the Newark schools

934
00:50:11.650 --> 00:50:15.540
by virtue of being Christie’s agent
in charge of education in the state.

935
00:50:15.540 --> 00:50:20.710
And he was the supervisor and boss
of the superintendent, Cami Anderson.

936
00:50:20.710 --> 00:50:24.860
And Cerf had been the number one deputy
to Joel Klein,

937
00:50:24.860 --> 00:50:26.480
who was chancellor
of New York City schools

938
00:50:26.480 --> 00:50:27.830
for eight years and was—

939
00:50:27.830 --> 00:50:29.480
had become a national champion

940
00:50:29.480 --> 00:50:32.960
and national hero
of the education reform movement.

941
00:50:32.960 --> 00:50:33.990
And so,

942
00:50:33.990 --> 00:50:38.060
Cerf basically brought the same ideas
that Joel Klein had used in New York,

943
00:50:38.060 --> 00:50:39.500
and wanted to—

944
00:50:39.500 --> 00:50:43.120
and he was in very many ways
the architect of what happened in Newark

945
00:50:43.120 --> 00:50:46.440
and followed the—you know,
followed Joel Klein’s model.

946
00:50:47.010 --> 00:50:49.770
They hired Cami Anderson
to be the superintendent,

947
00:50:49.770 --> 00:50:52.020
and she had been one
of Klein’s deputies.

948
00:50:52.020 --> 00:50:56.010
She was in charge
of alternative schools in New York City,

949
00:50:56.010 --> 00:50:59.020
so that included the students
on—you know,

950
00:50:59.020 --> 00:51:01.180
who are in prison on Rikers Island,

951
00:51:01.180 --> 00:51:04.570
that included
pregnant teenagers, you know,

952
00:51:04.570 --> 00:51:08.330
people who had aged out of the system
and came back as adults to learn.

953
00:51:08.330 --> 00:51:11.110
So she had the most challenging students
in New York City.

954
00:51:11.110 --> 00:51:12.560
And interestingly,

955
00:51:12.560 --> 00:51:14.840
you know, Cerf’s idea was to—

956
00:51:14.840 --> 00:51:17.090
and Booker’s idea and Christie’s idea

957
00:51:17.090 --> 00:51:22.510
and Zuckerberg’s idea was to use charter
schools as a big part of this expansion

958
00:51:22.510 --> 00:51:25.950
and reform, and also then to take
the district schools

959
00:51:25.950 --> 00:51:30.470
and try to make them much more sort
of running on a business model

960
00:51:30.470 --> 00:51:35.850
and have a lot more accountability
for teachers, have high penalties

961
00:51:35.850 --> 00:51:40.440
for teachers who were the weakest
and great rewards for those

962
00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:41.860
who were the best,

963
00:51:41.860 --> 00:51:43.780
some of which materialized.

964
00:51:43.780 --> 00:51:48.590
So, anyway, but Cami Anderson
became, you know, the superintendent

965
00:51:48.590 --> 00:51:53.180
and was in many ways the lightning rod
for all of these—all of these reforms.

966
00:51:53.180 --> 00:51:55.980
AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to comments
recently by Chris Cerf,

967
00:51:55.980 --> 00:52:00.230
the new state-appointed superintendent
of Newark public schools.

968
00:52:01.280 --> 00:52:04.050
CHRISTOPHER CERF: The graduation rate
is improved considerably.

969
00:52:04.050 --> 00:52:06.960
That’s probably the most
important statistic of all.

970
00:52:06.960 --> 00:52:08.000
STEVE ADUBATO: High school?
CHRISTOPHER CERF: High school

971
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:09.050
graduation rate.

972
00:52:09.050 --> 00:52:13.790
It’s gone
from the mid-50s up into the mid-60s.

973
00:52:14.360 --> 00:52:18.250
The percentage of students
who are graduating from high school,

974
00:52:18.250 --> 00:52:21.030
having passed our exit exam
here in the state,

975
00:52:21.030 --> 00:52:24.880
called HSPA, has gone up significantly.

976
00:52:24.880 --> 00:52:28.140
There’s been some very important work
in professional development.

977
00:52:28.140 --> 00:52:30.360
AMY GOODMAN: That is
Newark School Superintendent Chris Cerf

978
00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:32.080
appearing on the program One-on-One.

979
00:52:32.710 --> 00:52:34.960
Your response to that, Dale Russakoff?

980
00:52:34.960 --> 00:52:36.990
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well,
the graduation rate has gone up,

981
00:52:36.990 --> 00:52:38.970
but it actually went up
in the first year

982
00:52:38.970 --> 00:52:41.640
that Cami Anderson
was there and has been flat ever since,

983
00:52:41.640 --> 00:52:44.680
so those were students who had already
been in the schools for three years.

984
00:52:44.680 --> 00:52:47.450
It’s not clear
that what they’ve been doing in Newark

985
00:52:47.450 --> 00:52:49.360
has increased the graduation rate.

986
00:52:49.360 --> 00:52:53.070
And unfortunately,
if you look at college readiness,

987
00:52:53.070 --> 00:52:56.010
the ACT
shows that only 2 to 5 percent

988
00:52:56.010 --> 00:52:59.020
of students in the comprehensive
high schools are college-ready.

989
00:52:59.620 --> 00:53:03.090
Those comprehensive high schools
are schools that are not magnets

990
00:53:03.090 --> 00:53:04.220
and not charters.

991
00:53:04.220 --> 00:53:05.800
So, I think that, you know,

992
00:53:05.800 --> 00:53:08.980
it’s very unclear what’s going on
at the high school level.

993
00:53:08.980 --> 00:53:12.030
And if you look at the kindergarten
through eighth grade,

994
00:53:12.030 --> 00:53:13.290
all of the test scores

995
00:53:13.290 --> 00:53:16.730
have gone down since Cami Anderson
became the superintendent.

996
00:53:16.730 --> 00:53:19.400
I don’t think
that’s because she has—you know,

997
00:53:19.400 --> 00:53:22.650
because she damaged the schools
in what she did.

998
00:53:22.650 --> 00:53:27.090
I just don’t think that the changes
that she made were—

999
00:53:27.740 --> 00:53:29.210
well, the changes that she made

1000
00:53:29.210 --> 00:53:31.890
were probably, you know,
in many cases, positive,

1001
00:53:31.890 --> 00:53:35.360
but there was no focus
on getting more money to the classroom

1002
00:53:35.360 --> 00:53:38.050
to support the kids
who have such incredible needs

1003
00:53:38.050 --> 00:53:39.750
in Newark and in cities like it.

1004
00:53:39.750 --> 00:53:41.410
You have a lot of poverty.

1005
00:53:41.410 --> 00:53:43.680
Children witness violence
on a regular basis.

1006
00:53:43.680 --> 00:53:45.470
And for teachers
to try to reach those kids,

1007
00:53:45.470 --> 00:53:46.780
there has to be more support.

1008
00:53:46.780 --> 00:53:49.770
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, now you’re
in a situation where you have a mayor

1009
00:53:49.770 --> 00:53:54.140
who came to power basically opposing

1010
00:53:54.650 --> 00:53:57.870
these neoliberal reforms
in the school system,

1011
00:53:57.870 --> 00:54:00.800
but yet he has no impact

1012
00:54:00.800 --> 00:54:02.360
or control over the school system.
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Right.

1013
00:54:02.360 --> 00:54:05.450
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: So he’s now in a position
where he’s uniting with the parents

1014
00:54:05.450 --> 00:54:08.650
to continue a grassroots opposition—

1015
00:54:08.650 --> 00:54:09.830
the mayor and the parents—

1016
00:54:09.830 --> 00:54:11.070
to his own school system.

1017
00:54:11.070 --> 00:54:12.090
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, yes.

1018
00:54:12.090 --> 00:54:16.700
And he’s also in a funny position
because he is now sort of in alliance

1019
00:54:16.700 --> 00:54:18.870
with Christie and with Chris Cerf,

1020
00:54:18.870 --> 00:54:21.500
who’s—Chris Cerf
is now the superintendent of schools.

1021
00:54:21.500 --> 00:54:26.830
And, you know, he’s trying to work out
some kind of a peaceful resolution

1022
00:54:26.830 --> 00:54:28.530
so that Newark can—you know,

1023
00:54:28.530 --> 00:54:31.270
so that the people
can take control of the schools,

1024
00:54:31.270 --> 00:54:34.360
and at the same time, you know, not—

1025
00:54:34.360 --> 00:54:37.580
he’s concerned that if he—

1026
00:54:37.580 --> 00:54:40.100
I think if he collaborates too much
with them,

1027
00:54:40.100 --> 00:54:45.160
that he’ll lose the advantage
that he should have when he becomes—

1028
00:54:45.160 --> 00:54:47.570
you know, when the schools
come back to local control.

1029
00:54:47.570 --> 00:54:50.640
But the mayor
will not control the schools even then.

1030
00:54:50.640 --> 00:54:52.250
It will be an elected school board.

1031
00:54:52.250 --> 00:54:54.490
He’ll have a lot of influence
over those people—

1032
00:54:54.490 --> 00:54:55.850
you know, over the elections,

1033
00:54:55.850 --> 00:54:58.260
but he won’t control
them or the schools.

1034
00:54:58.260 --> 00:55:02.610
AMY GOODMAN: The grassroots uprising
you describe, how did parents organize?

1035
00:55:02.610 --> 00:55:07.640
Some of your most beautiful passages
are how the teachers and the principals

1036
00:55:07.640 --> 00:55:09.690
battled for the students,

1037
00:55:09.690 --> 00:55:11.700
who have grown up in poverty

1038
00:55:11.700 --> 00:55:14.480
in one of the poorest cities
in the United States,

1039
00:55:14.480 --> 00:55:16.720
and what they tried to do, as well.

1040
00:55:16.720 --> 00:55:18.770
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Yes, well,
the parents just—

1041
00:55:19.970 --> 00:55:21.550
you know, there were a lot

1042
00:55:21.550 --> 00:55:25.450
of organizational efforts
that went around the schools

1043
00:55:25.450 --> 00:55:27.130
that were being closed and consolidated.

1044
00:55:27.130 --> 00:55:30.350
Parents started assembling
and picketing in front of the schools.

1045
00:55:30.350 --> 00:55:33.570
And at first it was just kind
of very dispersed,

1046
00:55:33.570 --> 00:55:38.860
and then, actually, as Ras Baraka’s
mayoral campaign progressed,

1047
00:55:38.860 --> 00:55:40.840
they started rallying around him,

1048
00:55:40.840 --> 00:55:44.440
and instead of just turning up
at individual schools,

1049
00:55:44.440 --> 00:55:48.450
there were mass meetings at churches
that he often appeared at,

1050
00:55:48.450 --> 00:55:50.450
and parents
from all of the schools came.

1051
00:55:50.450 --> 00:55:53.000
And, you know, there was just
this feeling that we don’t—

1052
00:55:53.000 --> 00:55:56.010
we don’t know what’s happening
to our schools or to our kids,

1053
00:55:56.010 --> 00:55:57.800
and we don’t trust the process.

1054
00:55:57.800 --> 00:56:02.430
And he became the rallying point
for them and their opposition.

1055
00:56:03.040 --> 00:56:07.780
And I think that there was also a sense
that their teachers—

1056
00:56:07.780 --> 00:56:09.310
they trusted their teachers,

1057
00:56:09.310 --> 00:56:11.770
and they trusted their principals,

1058
00:56:11.770 --> 00:56:14.800
and they didn’t trust the people
who were in charge

1059
00:56:14.800 --> 00:56:18.200
of whatever these reforms
were bringing about.

1060
00:56:18.200 --> 00:56:21.840
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And the lessons
of Newark for the rest of the country?

1061
00:56:21.840 --> 00:56:27.080
Because, obviously, education battles
are sprouting throughout America,

1062
00:56:27.080 --> 00:56:28.240
whether it’s over Common Core

1063
00:56:28.240 --> 00:56:32.790
or whether it’s over opting
out of standardized tests,

1064
00:56:32.790 --> 00:56:33.860
and the degree—

1065
00:56:33.860 --> 00:56:37.180
the number and percentage
of charter schools

1066
00:56:37.180 --> 00:56:40.380
that are developing
in all the major cities in the country

1067
00:56:40.380 --> 00:56:41.820
and pushing out public schools.

1068
00:56:41.820 --> 00:56:46.560
Your sense of what—the main lessons
that you draw that people across America

1069
00:56:46.560 --> 00:56:48.000
should learn from your book?

1070
00:56:48.000 --> 00:56:51.160
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, I think
that what happened in Newark, you know,

1071
00:56:51.160 --> 00:56:55.620
in terms of just the political uprising
against the changes,

1072
00:56:55.620 --> 00:56:58.530
came from parents feeling
that somebody’s in charge of education

1073
00:56:58.530 --> 00:57:00.220
who doesn’t understand our kids.

1074
00:57:00.220 --> 00:57:01.670
And while, you know,

1075
00:57:01.670 --> 00:57:04.610
Newark is very different
from suburban communities,

1076
00:57:04.610 --> 00:57:07.350
I think that’s the feeling
a lot of suburban parents have,

1077
00:57:07.350 --> 00:57:08.640
who are upset about testing.

1078
00:57:08.640 --> 00:57:11.620
They feel that this is not
in the best interest of our kids,

1079
00:57:11.620 --> 00:57:14.650
or at least this level of testing
isn’t in the best interest of our kids.

1080
00:57:14.650 --> 00:57:15.830
And so, it’s the same—

1081
00:57:15.830 --> 00:57:17.930
you know, in many ways,
it’s the same impulse.

1082
00:57:17.930 --> 00:57:22.180
AMY GOODMAN: You had extensive access
given to you by Cory Booker.

1083
00:57:23.330 --> 00:57:27.840
Can you talk about how he
felt about the students?

1084
00:57:27.840 --> 00:57:30.150
Would you say he put it
above his political career?

1085
00:57:30.910 --> 00:57:33.860
DALE RUSSAKOFF: Well, I think
that he cares very much about students.

1086
00:57:33.860 --> 00:57:35.690
He relates to them when he’s in schools.

1087
00:57:35.690 --> 00:57:38.700
You can see that, you know, he really
does care a lot about the kids.

1088
00:57:38.700 --> 00:57:41.060
But he did not stick with this plan.

1089
00:57:41.060 --> 00:57:43.690
I mean, I think once he got
the $100 million gift,

1090
00:57:43.690 --> 00:57:46.410
and once he had gone on Oprah
to announce it,

1091
00:57:46.410 --> 00:57:47.740
there was a lot less focus

1092
00:57:47.740 --> 00:57:50.590
on the ground of really carrying out
changes in Newark.

1093
00:57:50.590 --> 00:57:52.760
AMY GOODMAN: Well,
I want to thank you very much,

1094
00:57:52.760 --> 00:57:55.170
Dale Russakoff, for joining us,
author of The Prize:

1095
00:57:55.170 --> 00:57:57.520
Who’s in Charge of America’s Schools?,

1096
00:57:57.520 --> 00:58:00.570
reporter for The Washington Post
for more than a quarter of a century.

1097
00:58:00.570 --> 00:58:01.860
And as we wrap up, Juan,

1098
00:58:01.860 --> 00:58:04.330
you’re giving a major address tonight
at New York University,

1099
00:58:04.330 --> 00:58:07.760
the King Juan Carlos Center,
on Puerto Rican debt crisis.

1100
00:58:07.760 --> 00:58:10.010
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes. I decided,

1101
00:58:10.010 --> 00:58:12.670
after writing numerous columns
in the Daily News

1102
00:58:12.670 --> 00:58:13.830
and talking here about it,

1103
00:58:13.830 --> 00:58:15.180
that that never—

1104
00:58:15.180 --> 00:58:17.340
I’ve never been able
to do a full explanation

1105
00:58:17.340 --> 00:58:18.950
of what is happening
with the debt crisis

1106
00:58:18.950 --> 00:58:20.800
and what are the potential solutions

1107
00:58:20.800 --> 00:58:22.380
for—

1108
00:58:22.380 --> 00:58:23.590
what can the United States

1109
00:58:23.590 --> 00:58:25.610
can do to help Puerto Rico
in the current crisis.

1110
00:58:25.610 --> 00:58:28.080
So I’m hoping to do that tonight at NYU.

1111
00:58:28.080 --> 00:58:30.150
AMY GOODMAN: So that’s
at the Juan Carlos Center

1112
00:58:30.150 --> 00:58:34.600
at New York University tonight
at 7:00 p.m.

1113
00:58:34.600 --> 00:58:36.400
There will be a live stream, as well,

1114
00:58:36.400 --> 00:58:38.650
and we will link to it
at democracynow.org.

1115
00:58:38.650 --> 00:58:40.880
Democracy Now! is hiring
a director of development

1116
00:58:40.880 --> 00:58:42.160
to lead our fundraising efforts.

1117
00:58:42.160 --> 00:58:43.510
You can send in your résumé.

1118
00:58:43.510 --> 00:58:46.710
You can get more information
at democracynow.org.