- michael barbaro
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From The New York Times, I'chiliad Michael Barbaro. This is "The Daily."
Today: For decades, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars trying to close its education gap with the rest of the globe. New data shows that all that money made no difference. Dana Goldstein on how that could be.
It's Thursday, December 5.
Dana, when did the U.s.a. showtime to feel a sense of feet around the education levels of our children in relation to the balance of the world?
- dana goldstein
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Well, I think back to 1957.
- archived recording
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Just the biggest news to come out of Russian federation was the story of the twelvemonth, perhaps of our generation.
- dana goldstein
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And that was the year that the Russians beat us to space —
- archived recording
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That radio beep signaling not merely a red scientific triumph but the launching of mankind into a new era, the dawn of the historic period of space. Sputnik and Muttnik, they were chosen.
- dana goldstein
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— with their Sputnik satellite. And this triggered a sort of national conversation and anxiety in the United States among our political leaders and the public. We were the land that trounce dorsum tyranny and saved the globe in Globe State of war I and Earth War II. What did it mean that this other nation could outperform usa in this new frontier of space? And that was the start of a conversation nigh our schools, and if they were preparing kids to compete on the global stage. This continues in the 1980s with the rise of Nippon and the ascent of China and with the reduction of these good factory jobs that used to ensure Americans a eye-class life. And so by the 1990s, in that location's a consensus among pedagogy reformers and politicians who care almost this that maybe it would exist helpful to take Washington play a role and the federal government got involved. And a few governors, whose names we've all heard of, like Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, are those that concord.
- archived recording (george w. bush-league)
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At present, often, we talk virtually our children having self-esteem. You can't teach self-esteem. But when nosotros teach our children to read, write, add and decrease, they acquire self-esteem. They earn it. And that's the whole vision for America, is that every child gets educated.
- dana goldstein
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When George W. Bush was running for president, this was the conversation that he was immersed in, and, in fact, he makes education reform and the idea of a bigger role for Washington role of his pitch equally a different kind of, quote, "empathetic conservative." That'southward how he defines himself. He says he actually does care virtually those that are getting left backside in this new globalized economy. And he says he really does care near helping depression-income students and students of colour practice meliorate academically so they can compete.
- archived recording (george due west. bush)
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Practiced to meet yous all. Cheers. What grade are nosotros in?
- archived recording (students)
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6th.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
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Cool, let me inquire you a question.
- archived recording
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Brand information technology math.
- archived recording (george w. bush)
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How many of you are going to go to higher?
- archived recording (students)
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Me!
- archived recording (george westward. bush)
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Skillful. How many of you lot read more than than y'all watch TV?
- archived recording (students)
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Me!
- archived recording (george due west. bush)
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Tell the truth.
- archived recording (student)
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Honestly.
- archived recording (george w. bush-league)
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O.K., adept. [LAUGHTER] How many of you practice math more you watch Tv set? [LAUGHTER]
- michael barbaro
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And at this moment, what is the relationship between the federal government in Washington and states when it comes to pedagogy?
- dana goldstein
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So information technology's pretty easily-off. They ship money, especially coin for schools that serve a lot of depression-income children, simply they don't have a lot of requirements fastened to that money. They likewise oversee civil rights in schools, and so they're on the sentinel to see if there's racial discrimination, gender discrimination. Simply they don't tell states how they should oversee schools. And all this starts to change when George W. Bush is elected president, and he represents this group of people who think this approach has been also hands-off. And we're not going to really be able to compete with the rest of the world where teaching systems are very centralized and much more summit-downwards than our American system if we don't have some leadership from Washington. And that's why he proposes and signs into police the No Child Left Behind Human activity.
- michael barbaro
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And what is No Child Left Backside?
- dana goldstein
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No Child Left Backside is basically a testing police force. It asks states to test students in third through eighth grade every year in math and reading and once in high school, and this is totally new.
- michael barbaro
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Hmm.
- dana goldstein
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The federal regime has never before asked states to test students. And it's interesting because I am 35, and my whole education preceded this police. And I have but a few memories in elementary school of taking standardized tests, and they weren't really something people talked about a lot. It'southward completely different now. And I think for a lot of adults who didn't get through this arrangement, they may not realize how dissimilar it really is.
- michael barbaro
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And what was the thinking behind suddenly requiring standardized testing in No Child Left Behind?
- dana goldstein
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I mean, the thinking was pretty uncomplicated. If you don't collect this information, y'all merely can't know how students are doing. And if you don't know how students are doing, you tin can't aid them improve. So with these test scores, you can finally say, how are depression-income students doing? How are African-American students doing? How are immigrant students doing? If you don't collect this data nationally, you don't know.
- michael barbaro
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Hmm.
- dana goldstein
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Then while the data is very helpful to teaching researchers, the No Child Left Behind Human action is widely seen as a failure.
- michael barbaro
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Why?
- dana goldstein
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I think two big reasons. The commencement is that all 50 states had total liberty to define for themselves what was going to be on all these tests.
- michael barbaro
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It wasn't 1 test.
- dana goldstein
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No, it was 50 different tests. And so Alabama might take a lot easier of a test than Massachusetts. And so it becomes really hard to compare how kids are doing beyond the states. And suddenly, it seems like this isn't actually that helpful of a national tool if the states are basically allowed to set their own yardstick. Each of these governors has an incentive to make themselves look expert. And the other big reason why it failed was only the tests were not that high quality, and the teachers were teaching to the test because schools could be declared failing if students were not moving forward on these exams and not scoring well enough.
- archived recording (barack obama)
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Thank yous. Thank yous, everybody.
- dana goldstein
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And when Barack Obama is elected president —
- archived recording (barack obama)
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Leadership tomorrow depends on how nosotros educate our students today, peculiarly in math, science, technology and engineering. But despite the importance of teaching in these subjects, we have to admit, we are correct now beingness outpaced by our competitors.
- dana goldstein
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— Barack Obama agreed with George W. Bush near a lot when it came to education. He believed in a bigger role for Washington. He was deeply concerned well-nigh accomplishment gaps, similar to George W. Bush. They represented sort of the 2 sides of the coin inside this bipartisan consensus.
- archived recording (barack obama)
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And then brand no mistake, our future is on the line. The nation that out-educates u.s. today is going to outcompete usa tomorrow.
- dana goldstein
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He comes upwardly with his own policies that he hopes are going to address the flaws of No Child Left Behind while sort of improve succeeding in the original goal. He is going to have meliorate tests, basically, and he's going to hold schools and teachers accountable to more than high-quality standards, and they're going to be shared across the country instead of 50 states.
- michael barbaro
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And so what does that solution look similar?
- dana goldstein
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Then it's convenient for President Obama that a bunch of governors and education reformers and philanthropists similar Beak Gates, they were already kind of together trying to solve this problem. And they had started talking almost something that would come to be called the Mutual Core State Standards, which would exist a national effort to write curriculum standards in reading and math that all fifty states could hopefully share. And Obama takes a look at this, and he loves the idea. The Obama assistants did requite money, through a program called Race to the Top —
- archived recording (barack obama)
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We've launched a $iv billion Race to the Tiptop Fund.
- dana goldstein
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— to states that adopted the Mutual Cadre.
- michael barbaro
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And how did that work?
- dana goldstein
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The way it worked is states were competing for most $four billion in federal funding. It was the recession. The states were bankrupt. They were desperate for greenbacks, and they would have done pretty much annihilation that was asked of them. And Obama gave them a lot of priorities that he wanted them to fulfill to get this money, and 1 of them was to adopt rigorous shared standards. He did not specifically say the Common Core, just that's what it was, because the effort was already underway, and all across statehouses across the country, people knew about this.
- michael barbaro
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And so, over again, equally with No Kid Left Behind, this is not the federal government mandating one vision of American educational activity, but they're profoundly encouraging it.
- dana goldstein
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Yes, encouraging it. And right off the bat, within the first year, the vast majority, over 40 of the states, said, O.K., nosotros're in. We're going to do the Mutual Core.
- archived recording i
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California Lath of Educational activity today unanimously approved new and rigorous guidelines.
- archived recording 2
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New compatible educational standards are expected to heighten the bar for students in Maryland starting side by side year — the Common Core Standards programme.
- archived recording three
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This curriculum is really going to be historic, and information technology'due south going to assist improve prepare our students for this hyper-competitive global economic system.
- archived recording 4
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Certainly, the federal government has stepped up with a Common Core Standards and the idea that we develop a national exam to test children, really, in all of the skills, not just in the —
- dana goldstein
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And those tests do striking the market, and that does become how many teachers and parents and students first meet this thing — the Common Core — is through the tests.
- michael barbaro
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So did Obama'south vision here of national standards and incentives for states to adopt them, did it succeed in its goals?
- dana goldstein
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Information technology did not quite work out as intended. Information technology's really this incredible, strange moment where people on the far right and the far left agree that they don't similar, in fact, they detest the Common Core. On the left, it's really virtually anti-testing fervor. Parents hated that their kids were going to school and being presented with these multiple-choice problems, and the curriculum was narrowing to these math and reading tests, so social studies, arts, even science. The number of minutes per twenty-four hours that kids were encountering all these wonderful things was decreasing because the teachers were so stressed out well-nigh these math and reading exams. And what parents on the left were proverb is this is non what I desire from my kid's public school.
- archived recording 1
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[CHANTING] End Mutual Cadre! Our kids deserve more! End Common Core!
- archived recording 2
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Parents, in fact, are deciding to opt out —
- dana goldstein
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There's the nativity of this opt-out movement, which is a motility to encourage parents to opt their kids out of sitting for these exams.
- archived recording
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— in places like New York State, where as many as 165,000 students opted out.
- dana goldstein
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So this opt-out movement really reaches a peak in New York Land in 2015 when 20 percent of students opt-out, and in some schools, information technology'due south shut to 100 percent.
- archived recording 1
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Thankfully, well-nigh of us began to listen to the cries for assist coming from our children. Parents turn down to let their children to be part of the Mutual Cadre testing auto. [CHEERING] Whoo! Whoo. Whoo-hoo.
- dana goldstein
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At the same time, Tea Party activists on the right are railing against the Mutual Core.
- michael barbaro
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Why?
- dana goldstein
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They see it as a sort of classic large government, federal incursion into local control.
- archived recording (michele bachmann)
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We demand to do an education what's e'er worked historically and that'southward local control.
- dana goldstein
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Yous take Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann —
- archived recording (michele bachmann)
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I would take the entire federal education law, repeal it. And so I would go over to the Department of Instruction. I'd turn out the lights, I'd lock the door, and all the money back to the state and localities.
- dana goldstein
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— railing against the Common Core. And all suddenly, where it had been acceptable for Republicans to join with President Obama and support this thing, all of a sudden, in states beyond this land, it's not O.K. anymore. And it'due south also not O.K. in many places to exist a Democrat who speaks in favor of this considering of the opposition on the left. So you run into all these states, more than xx states, beginning to roll back these laws, and states start to pull out of the agreement to utilise shared tests and get-go maxim, nosotros're going to become get our own test and develop our ain test.
- michael barbaro
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So in that location's a pretty broad-based refusal to adopt this idea of a national set up of standards and curriculum. But that would seem to make a organization that's congenital on the goal of centralization basically impossible.
- dana goldstein
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Yes, it's actually, actually hard to do anything centrally in our system because we don't have a organization that was created to be centralized. Local control was sort of the founding orthodoxy of American public education in the 19th century. Our Constitution does not include the word education. In that location is no sort of role for the federal government that allows them to achieve into schools, reach into classrooms, change practices. It'southward all sort of, you lot know, carrots and sticks, options. And information technology doesn't work that well. It's very, very hard to brand change on a national scale when that'south the system that y'all've built.
- michael barbaro
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So any consensus had been achieved by this point through the Bush and Obama eras that this was a worthy goal, national standards, a national organization, that starts to unravel.
- dana goldstein
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It's starting to autumn apart.
- michael barbaro
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We'll be right back.
Dana, then bring us upwards to today. Where are we in this process?
- dana goldstein
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So over the past few weeks, ii big new pieces of show accept come out, and they paint a pretty depressing picture for American instruction and American kids. The offset was the gold-standard tool that researchers use to look at American didactics. It's called the National Assessment of Educational Progress. It showed that only one-tertiary of American 4th and eighth graders can exist considered proficient readers — merely a third. And across the board at every level, students had declining reading scores over the past two years.
- michael barbaro
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Failing.
- dana goldstein
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Yeah, going down. With all these efforts to make things better, those scores were going down. And so this was a very pitiful day for many in the world of education, the globe that I've been roofing for over a decade. And so simply a few days ago, I had another pitiful story to written report, which was on the test that is considered the gold-standard international global examination — the Program for International Student Achievement — it showed that there were 20 percent of American xv-twelvemonth-olds who do not read likewise as they should at age 10. And so they really are missing very basic reading comprehension skills. And it plant that American performance is flat in both reading and math since 2000. So this entire time menstruation —
- michael barbaro
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Wow, 20 years.
- dana goldstein
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— that we've been discussing, ever since George Westward. Bush was elected and No Kid Left Behind, through President Obama and Race to the Top and Common Cadre and effort later endeavor to endeavor to go American kids to do better on these types of international exams, American operation has not inverse. Information technology'southward stagnant.
- michael barbaro
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Despite not merely all those programs simply, I assume, the billions of dollars spent to put them in place.
- dana goldstein
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Many, many billions of dollars — private dollars, public dollars, all of that.
- michael barbaro
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This all sounds quite bad and quite depressing. But I wonder, ultimately, how much the scores you're describing hither, especially comparing U.South. students to international students, really matters? Considering the U.s. very much remains a global superpower. We accept one of the strongest economies on the planet. We take low unemployment. Then if you kind of swallow your national pride, is this really a crisis?
- dana goldstein
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I remember it is. I hateful, how tin can you feel pride when you lot recollect most that fifteen-year-one-time who can't read as well as a 10-year-former should? With those types of literacy skills, they're non going to be suited for work that'south going to pay a living wage in this economy that we're living in. And just across that, beyond what happens to that person on the chore market, education is about so much more than. That person needs to be a citizen. That's why we started public education in the United States, and then that we could create people who would be good voters and make wise choices well-nigh who their leaders should be. And there'south this one statistic from the international examination that merely came out that I just keep going dorsum to, because this number upset me, which was that only 14 pct of American students could distinguish, reliably, between fact and opinion.
- michael barbaro
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14 per centum is kind of extraordinary. How did they mensurate that?
- dana goldstein
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And then I have a sample question from the examination here in forepart of me that illustrates what it is that American kids can't do. And the practise goes like this. It shows students 2 pieces of writing. One is a news article about research on milk and whether it has health benefits or wellness detriments.
- michael barbaro
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So this is archetype journalism.
- dana goldstein
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Pretty much. Yeah. And the 2d is produced by a group that students are told is called the International Dairy Foods Association, and it speaks to all the wonderful benefits of drinking milk.
- michael barbaro
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So this is something from a merchandise group.
- dana goldstein
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Exactly. Students are and then presented with a series of statements based on what they've read, and they are asked to decide, is this a fact or an opinion? And I'll give you an example. "Drinking milk and other dairy products is the best way to lose weight." Fact or opinion?
- michael barbaro
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Opinion.
- dana goldstein
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Exactly. It's stance put forward by people that want the public to buy more milk products.
- michael barbaro
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The trade group.
- dana goldstein
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Exactly. And these are the types of questions that the majority of American students were non able to get right.
- michael barbaro
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They're failing to distinguish between fact and opinion, between that which is being told to them past people with specific interests and those that are objectively true, the result of enquiry or investigation by reporters.
- dana goldstein
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Exactly. And think nigh the implications of this in a globe where in that location's and then much misinformation on social media, political advertisements that are trying to sway your opinion.
- michael barbaro
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Strange countries interfering in elections.
- dana goldstein
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Exactly. And we tin can't even agree, for example, in this country whether information technology is Ukraine or Russian federation that influenced our election in 2016, even though nosotros know it was information technology was Russian federation that meddled — in that location really is no question on the facts. And so when I hear that, you know, only fourteen pct of American students are getting this type of question correct, I recall it raises big questions non just virtually our economical competitiveness, or are these kids well-suited to the workforce, but about our land, our hereafter. Are they being prepared to be citizens? And how will that affect all of us?
- michael barbaro
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Mm-hmm.
- dana goldstein
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So these questions about didactics performance are very deep. They get to the core of who we are every bit Americans and what our future will hold.
And information technology makes me recall that some of our core American values of American exceptionalism and individualism and local command, these orthodoxies which we're proud of and rightfully so in many means because they've contributed to what'due south different nearly the U.s. and driven local innovation, but they're also now contributing to this intractable, difficult, of import trouble to solve, which is how do we truly prepare our kids to succeed, non just equally workers but also as human beings and as citizens of this land?
- michael barbaro
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Dana, thank you very much.
- dana goldstein
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Give thanks yous and then much, Michael.
- michael barbaro
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We'll be correct back.
Here'south what else yous demand to know today.
- archived recording (michael gerhardt)
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If what we're talking about is not impeachable, and so nothing is impeachable. This is precisely the misconduct that the framers created a Constitution including impeachment to protect against.
- michael barbaro
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During testimony on Wednesday, three law professors told the Firm Judiciary Committee that President Trump's attempts to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political rivals crossed ramble lines and amounted to impeachable conduct. One of them, Stanford Police professor Pamela Karlan, was asked whether the president's acquit was grounds for impeachment fifty-fifty if the investigations he requested were never carried out.
- archived recording (pamela karlan)
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Imagine that yous were pulled over for speeding by a law officer. And the officer comes up to the windows and says, you were speeding. But, you know, if you give me 20 bucks, I'll drop the ticket. And y'all look in your wallet and you say to the officer, I don't take the 20 bucks. And the officer says, O.1000., well, just go ahead, accept a nice solar day. The officer would still be guilty of soliciting a bribe in that location, even though he ultimately permit yous off without — without your paying.
- michael barbaro
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Merely a law professor called by Republicans on the committee, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, testified that Democrats had not sufficiently proven their case against the president.
- archived recording (jonathan turley)
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I'm concerned about lowering impeachment standards to fit a paucity of prove and an abundance of anger. I believe this impeachment not only fails to satisfy the standard of past impeachments just would create a dangerous precedent for future impeachments.
- michael barbaro
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That'south it for "The Daily." I'm Michael Barbaro. Meet yous tomorrow.
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