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My first job out of college
was as an academic researcher

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at one of the largest juvenile
detention centers in the country.

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And every day I would drive
to this building

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on the West Side of Chicago,

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go through the security checkpoint

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and walk down these brown, brick hallways
as I made my way down to the basement

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to observe the intake process.

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The kids coming in
were about 10 to 16 years old,

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usually always black and brown,

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most likely from the same impoverished
South and West Sides of Chicago.

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They should've been
in fifth to 10th grade,

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but instead they were here
for weeks on end

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awaiting trial for various crimes.

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Some of them came back to the facility
14 times before their 15th birthday.

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And as I sat there on the other side
of the glass from them,

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idealistic with a college degree,

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I wondered to myself:

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why didn't schools do something more
to prevent this from happening?

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It's been about 10 years since then,

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and I still think about how some kids
get tracked towards college

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and others towards detention,

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but I no longer think about schools'
abilities to solve these things.

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You see, I've learned that so much
of this problem is systemic

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that often our school system
perpetuates the social divide.

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It makes worse what it's supposed to fix.

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That's as a crazy or controversial

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as saying that our health care system
isn't preventative

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but somehow profits
off of keeping us sick ...

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oops.

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(Laughter)

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I truly do believe though
that kids can achieve great things

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despite the odds against them,

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and in fact, my own research shows that.

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But if we're serious about helping
more kids from across the board

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to achieve and make it in this world,

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we're going to have to realize
that our gaps in student outcomes

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are not so much about achievement
as much as they are about opportunity.

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A 2019 EdBuild report showed

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that majority-white districts
receive about 23 billion dollars more

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in annual funding than nonwhite districts,

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even though they serve
about the same number of students.

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Lower resource schools are dealing
with lower quality equipment,

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obsolete technology

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and paying teachers way less.

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Here in New York,

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those are also the schools
most likely to serve

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the one in 10 elementary school students

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who will most likely have to sleep
in a homeless shelter tonight.

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The student, parent and teacher
are dealing with a lot.

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Sometimes places are misplacing
the blame back on them.

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In Atlanta, we saw that teachers
felt desperate enough

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to have to help their students
cheat on standardized tests

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that would impact their funding.

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Eight of them went
to jail for that in 2015

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with some sentences as high as 20 years,

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which is more than what many states
give for second-degree murder.

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The thing is though, in places like Tulsa,

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teachers' pay has been so bad

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that these people have had
to go to food pantries

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or soup kitchens just to feed themselves.

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The same system will criminalize a parent
who will use a relative's address

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to send their child to a better school,

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but for who knows how long
authorities have turned a blind eye

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to those who can bribe their way

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onto the most elite and beautiful
college campuses.

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And a lot of this feels
pretty heavy to be saying --

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and maybe to be hearing --

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and since there's nothing quite like
economics talk to lighten the mood --

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that's right, right?

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Let me tell you about some of the costs

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when we fail to tap
into our students' potential.

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A McKinsey study showed that if in 1998

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we could've closed our long-standing
student achievement gaps

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between students
of different ethnic backgrounds

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or students of different income levels,

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by 2008, our GDP --

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our untapped economic gains --

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could have gone up
by more than 500 billion dollars.

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Those same gaps in 2008,

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between our students here in the US
and those across the world,

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may have deprived our economy

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of up to 2.3 trillion dollars
of economic output.

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But beyond economics, numbers and figures,

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I think there's a simpler reason
that this matters;

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a simpler reason for fixing our system

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is that in a true democracy,

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like the one we pride
ourselves on having --

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and sometimes rightfully so --

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a child's future
should not be predetermined

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by the circumstances of their birth.

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A public education system should not
create a wider bottom and more narrow top.

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Some of us can sometimes think

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that these things
aren't that close to home,

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but they are if we broaden our view,

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because a leaky faucet in our kitchen,

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broken radiator in our hallway,

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those parts of the house that we always
say we're going to get to next week,

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they're devaluing our whole property.

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Instead of constantly looking away
to solutions like privatization

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or the charter school movement
to solve our problems,

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why don't we take a deeper look
at public education,

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try to take more pride in it

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and maybe use it to solve
some of our social problems.

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Why don't we try to reclaim
the promise of public education

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and remember that it's
our greatest collective responsibility?

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Luckily some of our communities
are doing just that.

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The huge teacher strikes
in the spring of 2019 in Denver and LA --

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they were successful
because of community support

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for things like smaller class sizes

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and getting things into schools
like more counselors

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in addition to teacher pay.

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And sometimes for the student,

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innovation is just daring
to implement common sense.

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In Baltimore a few years ago,

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they enacted a free breakfast
and lunch program,

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taking away the stigma
of poverty and hunger

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for some students

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but increasing achievement
in attendance for many others.

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And in Memphis,

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the university is recruiting
local, passionate high school students

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and giving them scholarships
to go teach in the inner city

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without the burden of college debt.

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And north of here in the Bronx,

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I recently researched
these partnerships being built

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between high schools,
community colleges and local businesses

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who are creating internships
in finance, health care and technology

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for students without
"silver spoon" connections

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to gain important skills

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and contribute to the communities
that they come from.

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So today I don't necessarily have
the same questions about education

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that I did when I was an idealistic,
perhaps naïve college grad

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working in a detention center basement.

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It's not, can schools
save more of our students,

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because I think
we have the answer to that,

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and it's yes they can
if we save our schools first.

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We can start by caring about the education
of other people's children ...

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and I'm saying that
as someone who doesn't have kids yet,

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but wants to worry a little bit less
about the future for when I do.

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Cultivating as much talent as possible,

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getting as many girls
as we can from all over

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into science and engineering,

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and as many boys as we can
into teaching --

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those are investments for our future.

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Our students are like
our most valuable resource,

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and when you put it that way,

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our teachers are like our modern-day
diamond and gold miners,

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hoping to help make them shine.

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Let's contribute our voices,

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our votes and our support

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to giving them the resources
that they will need

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not just to survive,

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but hopefully thrive,

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allowing all of us to do so as well.

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Thank you.

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(Applause and cheers)