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I'm a little nervous, because my wife Yvonne said to me,
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she said, "Geoff, you watch the TED Talks."
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I said, "Yes, honey, I love TED Talks."
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She said, "You know, they're like, really smart, talented -- "
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I said, "I know, I know." (Laughter)
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She said, "They don't want, like, the angry black man."
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(Laughter)
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So I said, "No, I'm gonna be good, Honey,
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I'm gonna be good. I am."
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But I am angry. (Laughter)
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And the last time I looked, I'm --
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(Applause)
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So this is why I'm excited but I'm angry.
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This year, there are going to be millions of our children
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that we're going to needlessly lose,
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that we could -- right now, we could save them all.
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You saw the quality of the educators who were here.
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Do not tell me they could not reach those kids
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and save them. I know they could.
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It is absolutely possible.
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Why haven't we fixed this?
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Those of us in education have held on to a business plan
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that we don't care how many millions of young people fail,
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we're going to continue to do the same thing that didn't work,
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and nobody is getting crazy about it -- right? --
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enough to say, "Enough is enough."
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So here's a business plan that simply does not make any sense.
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You know, I grew up in the inner city,
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and there were kids who were failing
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in schools 56 years ago when I first went to school,
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and those schools are still lousy today, 56 years later.
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And you know something about a lousy school?
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It's not like a bottle of wine.
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Right? (Laughter)
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Where you say, like, '87 was like a good year, right?
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That's now how this thing -- I mean, every single year,
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it's still the same approach, right?
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One size fits all, if you get it, fine, and if you don't,
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tough luck. Just tough luck.
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Why haven't we allowed innovation to happen?
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Do not tell me we can't do better than this.
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Look, you go into a place that's failed kids for 50 years,
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and you say, "So what's the plan?"
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And they say, "We'll, we're going to do
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what we did last year this year."
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What kind of business model is that?
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Banks used to open and operate between 10 and 3.
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They operated 10 to 3. They were closed for lunch hour.
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Now, who can bank between 10 and 3? The unemployed.
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They don't need banks. They got no money in the banks.
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Who created that business model? Right?
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And it went on for decades.
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You know why? Because they didn't care.
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It wasn't about the customers.
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It was about bankers. They created something that worked for them.
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How could you go to the bank
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when you were at work? It didn't matter.
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And they don't care whether or not Geoff is upset
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he can't go to the bank. Go find another bank.
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They all operate the same way. Right?
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Now, one day, some crazy banker had an idea.
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Maybe we should keep the bank open when people come home from work.
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They might like that. What about a Saturday?
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What about introducing technology?
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Now look, I'm a technology fan, but I have to admit
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to you all I'm a little old.
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So I was a little slow, and I did not trust technology,
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and when they first came out with those new contraptions,
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these tellers that you put in a card and they give you money,
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I was like, "There's no way that machine is going to count that money right.
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I am never using that, right?"
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So technology has changed. Things have changed.
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Yet not in education. Why?
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Why is it that when we had rotary phones,
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when we were having folks being crippled by polio,
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that we were teaching
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the same way then that we're doing right now?
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And if you come up with a plan to change things,
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people consider you radical.
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They will say the worst things about you.
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I said one day, well, look, if the science says --
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this is science, not me -- that our poorest children
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lose ground in the summertime --
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You see where they are in June and say, okay, they're there.
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You look at them in September, they've gone down.
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You say, whoo! So I heard about that in '75
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when I was at the Ed School at Harvard.
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I said, "Oh, wow, this is an important study."
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Because it suggests we should do something.
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(Laughter)
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Every 10 years they reproduce the same study.
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It says exactly the same thing:
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Poor kids lose ground in the summertime.
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The system decides you can't run schools in the summer.
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You know, I always wonder, who makes up those rules?
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For years I went to -- Look, I went the Harvard Ed School.
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I thought I knew something.
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They said it was the agrarian calendar, and people had —
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but let me tell you why that doesn't make sense.
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I never got that. I never got that,
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because anyone knows if you farm,
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you don't plant crops in July and August.
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You plant them in the spring.
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So who came up with this idea? Who owns it?
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Why did we ever do it?
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Well it just turns out in the 1840s we did have,
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schools were open all year. They were open all year,
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because we had a lot of folks who had to work all day.
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They didn't have any place for their kids to go.
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It was a perfect place to have schools.
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So this is not something that is ordained
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from the education gods.
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So why don't we? Why don't we?
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Because our business has refused to use science.
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Science. You have Bill Gates coming out and saying,
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"Look, this works, right? We can do this."
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How many places in America are going to change? None.
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None. Okay, yeah, there are two. All right?
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Yes, there'll be some place, because some folks will do the right thing.
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As a profession, we have to stop this. The science is clear.
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Here's what we know.
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We know that the problem begins immediately.
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Right? This idea, zero to three.
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My wife, Yvonne, and I, we have four kids,
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three grown ones and a 15-year-old.
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That's a longer story.
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(Laughter)
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With our first kids, we did not know the science
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about brain development.
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We didn't know how critical those first three years were.
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We didn't know what was happening in those young brains.
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We didn't know the role that language,
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a stimulus and response, call and response,
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how important that was in developing those children.
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We know that now. What are we doing about it? Nothing.
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Wealthy people know. Educated people know.
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And their kids have an advantage.
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Poor people don't know,
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and we're not doing anything to help them at all.
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But we know this is critical.
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Now, you take pre-kindergarten.
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We know it's important for kids.
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Poor kids need that experience.
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Nope. Lots of places, it doesn't exist.
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We know health services matter.
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You know, we provide health services
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and people are always fussing at me about, you know,
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because I'm all into accountability and data
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and all of that good stuff, but we do health services,
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and I have to raise a lot of money.
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People used to say when they'd come fund us,
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"Geoff, why do you provide these health services?"
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I used to make stuff up. Right?
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I'd say, "Well, you know a child
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who has cavities is not going to, uh,
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be able to study as well."
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And I had to because I had to raise the money.
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But now I'm older, and you know what I tell them?
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You know why I provide kids with those health benefits
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and the sports and the recreation and the arts?
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Because I actually like kids.
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I actually like kids. (Laughter) (Applause)
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But when they really get pushy, people really get pushy,
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I say, "I do it because you do it for your kid."
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And you've never read a study from MIT that says
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giving your kid dance instruction
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is going to help them do algebra better,
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but you will give that kid dance instruction,
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and you will be thrilled that that kid wants to do dance instruction,
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and it will make your day. And why shouldn't poor kids
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have the same opportunity? It's the floor for these children.
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(Applause)
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So here's the other thing.
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I'm a tester guy. I believe you need data, you need information,
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because you work at something, you think it's working,
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and you find out it's not working.
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I mean, you're educators. You work, you say,
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you think you've got it, great, no? And you find out they didn't get it.
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But here's the problem with testing.
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The testing that we do --
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we're going to have our test in New York next week —
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is in April.
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You know when we're going to get the results back?
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Maybe July, maybe June.
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And the results have great data.
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They'll tell you Raheem really struggled,
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couldn't do two-digit multiplication -- so great data,
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but you're getting it back after school is over.
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And so, what do you do?
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You go on vacation. (Laughter)
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You come back from vacation.
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Now you've got all of this test data from last year.
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You don't look at it.
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Why would you look at it?
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You're going to go and teach this year.
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So how much money did we just spend on all of that?
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Billions and billions of dollars
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for data that it's too late to use.
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I need that data in September.
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I need that data in November.
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I need to know you're struggling, and I need to know
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whether or not what I did corrected that.
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I need to know that this week.
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I don't need to know that at the end of the year when it's too late.
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Because in my older years, I've become somewhat of a clairvoyant.
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I can predict school scores.
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You take me to any school.
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I'm really good at inner city schools that are struggling.
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And you tell me last year 48 percent of those kids
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were on grade level.
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And I say, "Okay, what's the plan, what did we do
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from last year to this year?"
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You say, "We're doing the same thing."
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I'm going to make a prediction. (Laughter)
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This year, somewhere between 44
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and 52 percent of those kids will be on grade level.
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And I will be right every single time.
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So we're spending all of this money, but we're getting what?
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Teachers need real information right now
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about what's happening to their kids.
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The high stakes is today, because you can do something about it.
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So here's the other issue that I just think
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we've got to be concerned about.
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We can't stifle innovation in our business.
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We have to innovate. And people in our business get mad about innovation.
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They get angry if you do something different.
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If you try something new, people are always like,
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"Ooh, charter schools." Hey, let's try some stuff. Let's see.
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This stuff hasn't worked for 55 years.
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Let's try something different. And here's the rub.
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Some of it's not going to work.
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You know, people tell me, "Yeah, those charter schools, a lot of them don't work."
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A lot of them don't. They should be closed.
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I mean, I really believe they should be closed.
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But we can't confuse figuring out the science
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and things not working with we shouldn't therefore do anything.
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Right? Because that's not the way the world works.
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If you think about technology,
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imagine if that's how we thought about technology.
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Every time something didn't work,
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we just threw in the towel and said, "Let's forget it." Right?
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You know, they convinced me. I'm sure some of you were like me --
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the latest and greatest thing, the PalmPilot.
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They told me, "Geoff, if you get this PalmPilot
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you'll never