 Back, this is Jay Fidel on Think Tech, and we're talking about community matters today. We're talking about a new model of education for America with Carl Ackerman, who wrote a book about such things, and Peter Hoffenberg, our old friend who is into history, mostly European history, but it always has a bearing, doesn't it, Peter? I think so. Yes. I'll say something non-conversal. Carl has been teaching at Punahou for the last 200 years, so he brings a lot to the table. The topic I'm thinking about, and the way to segue into the subject is we have 70 million people who voted in this election last week for Trump, and even people who voted for Trump after he had initiated measures that would hurt them. Quite remarkable. I've got 70 million people. A lot of people voted against their own interests, and everybody's searching around for why. Why would anybody vote against its own interests? Or why would anybody vote for a guy like Trump who's ripping up our democracy? And the answer, at least in part, has to be American education. The ability to create critical thinking in our students and therefore our citizens. And if our students don't have critical thinking, if they're not able to appreciate these things, how can they be participating citizens? And if they don't participate properly, if they're not participating citizens, what happens to them? I think the founding fathers assumed that you would have a literate, thoughtful electorate. Query do we have that, and if not, how much is that connected to the quality of education? So Carl, you wrote the book. Talk about the book and talk about that question. Do we have a properly educated electorate in this country, and if not, why not? Well, let me, the name of the book is Success Story in Public Education, and if people would like to read it, it's on Google, and you just plug in that to Google, or you can plug in my name Carl Ackerman into the Amazon search engine. To answer your question, Jay, I think that you have to begin at the very sort of beginning about who is being educated and where are they? And the proof in the pudding is that most of our students are public school students. I think their education is pretty good across the country. Sometimes public schools need a little help, and that's what my book is about. But I think the main problem is information. Where are people getting information? And I think of that 70 million, they're probably watching certain television shows, they're listening to a certain type of social media. So I think that their ideas are framed within that context. I also think that there's a lack, and Peter could talk about this a bit more, of understanding and appreciating not only American history, but European history at Infinitum, because I think if people are in history classes that do justice for kids, they're taught to see different points of view. And my hope is one of the cures would be for every class in history to begin with ancient history and talk about the ancient Chinese and talk about the Greeks and the Romans and give kids kind of a perspective that it's not just themselves and their families. There's a larger group. And as the chief rabbi in London who just passed on said, it's Lord Jonathan Sacks, you know, people should stop thinking about self and stop and start thinking about us here. What's your reaction to all that. We should have at least six or seven more shows, let me roof off of Dr. Ackerman's really very important work and book and keep this focused on the book because I think it raises some very important questions and I'll throw them out and we can talk about them. There has been historically a great divide between public and private education. Now that does not mean that a public school is in so fact better than a private school, but we are talking about public schools in well funded districts do quite well. So part of this and Carl's discussions are very important relationship between the two between public and private. So I think that when you suggest the education gap, etc. Some of that addresses private versus public and certainly that goes back to whether or not we have schools funded by local taxes or not. So the discussion of high school education and how high school graduate vote is replicated by a community college discussion those community colleges and well and down areas. So I think the most fundamental thing we have to think about is how we're going to fund education so that the funding is not a political fruit every single election, but it's consistent. Maybe you could discuss at least briefly the Betsy divorce phenomenon and why she would favor. So the bet. Yeah, go ahead. Right. But the Betsy divorce phenomenon is the ill legitimate frightening fruit of the same tree that's been there forever, which is that we do not have a national educational policy. But Dr. Ackerman, you know me well enough. We don't have a national policy about anything. Right. I mean, this does this. No, seriously, this discussion about education citizenship can very well lead here in Hawaii. We have the reverse. We have a statewide Board of Education, which is very rare. But if you flip that over part of the problem United States is there's no national educational system every 10 years. We have standards and those standards end up being political battles. So there's a public versus private and to a certain degree, I don't really care public versus private. I care about the money right where is the money coming from to is really no national policy. So when people start talking about citizenship, well, Tom Cotton in Arkansas does have a view of citizenship. It's not that he doesn't, but his view of citizenship is grounded in an Arkansas educational system all the way down to high school. And somebody discussing citizenship in California also uses the same term. The citizenship there has a very, very different meaning. So I would say public versus private, the lack of national. And then I think in Carl and I could have cups of coffee about this. Let's be honest. What is the purpose of education? I think we got to start from the first step. Why do we want in our society, for example, students to continue after high school? Most societies around the world don't, right? Most societies around the world at some kind of elementary school equivalency or high school equivalency. Why do we? I'm not saying we shouldn't, but I think in order to answer this question, we got to step back and say, all right, we really would prefer men and women and everybody else after the age of 18 or something somehow continuing their formal education. Well, you know, there's another question that follows on that. We had a guest on ThinkTech a few years ago, and she was the leader of a national nonprofit that took the position that not everybody should go to college and that a fair number of people who went to college where shouldn't be there, and they should be in trade schools if they want to learn a trade because to what this country needs is the graduates. That's an increasingly popular view. And that's increasingly popular view left, right, and center. And I would prefer, at least for us, that a technical school is continuing education, right? I'm not talking about non-technical, but I do think a liberal arts education has a different purpose, and I think one of the beauties of Carl's book and the five centuries he spent at Pueo is saying public school students who have the capabilities to continue should not be held back for reasons of not their own making. So the cahoukou kid who could major in French lived, we should do the best we can. And we shouldn't get involved in, well, a cahoukou kid should just learn to fold a towel for a hotel. No, the kid if capable and interested. And if the kid wants to go to a technical school, of course. But I think there's some advantage, even if you went major in civil engineering at the age, there's an advantage to reading some Shakespeare. There's an advantage to knowing about... Part of that advantage is what I was talking about at the beginning is making a good citizen out of him, giving him the wisdom to be able to discern sources of information, good information from bad information, and vote properly. Because the whole thing is depending on voting. And I think what happened here demonstrates that we are not very good at it. Anyway, let me go back to the book itself, Carl. We're talking around your book now, but we haven't really gotten into it. Could we unpack your book a little? It addresses, it comes up with solutions. What are the problems? What are the solutions? Thank you very much. A success story in public education. And what that shows is the Pueo kids, because this is really a singular example of how education can be successful and primarily public education. And what that shows is kids in front of the Art Academy here in Honolulu. And what those kids are doing is they're on a field trip. So our, the Pueo program, which is described in the book, it basically took public school kids, all of whom were on free or reduced lunch, gave them seven years of activities during the summer, mostly academic, but field trips as you can see here, and made them college ready. And it was very successful. And part of the problem I think with education today, and it's not really a problem, is that people like in our politics have to begin to talk to one another. And while I was able in a very small conference to see and talk to both Arne Duncan and Betsy DeVos, they represent different points of view, but they're both very interested in doing right by children. And I think that's the major thing we have to do. And what the book does is it shows by forming partnerships, how by forming partnerships in different community elements, you can really have kids succeed. And what I mean by succeed is we had like a 95% graduation from high school. And from the kids in the Pueo program, all who came in on free or reduced lunch, and they were in the great middle. They weren't in the top 20%, they weren't in the bottom 20%. Those are often the kids that are ignored. And 85% of those kids went on to higher education, whether that's junior college or college. Several of the pictures show individual students. And if I were to suggest anything that could change about educational form, the precious graduated from a Zion College, evangelical college in Boston, and now as a vice principal here in Hawaii. So the kids can, if you stick with the kids and you focus on the kids, oftentimes money is spent or people in think tanks or even people in donations talk about educating the kids. But what you have to do is you have to focus on the kids and get to the kids, number one. And number two, and by the way, two of these boys are still in the program, the oldest boy, Mana, is going to community college here. And he wants to be a doctor and he's just lovely. And the auntie is taking these four boys in and Mana has a place to speak in the book. Precious has a place and there's another person. There's another picture of two women, I don't know if you can show that, yes. This is Christie Wong, who was in our program, and she was in public school. And about 10% of the kids in the Pueo program matriculated in a private school. Christie went to Pudahoe School, the same school as most people know as Barack Obama. And here she is graduating from Princeton and she's standing next to one of her former kumu or teachers in the program. Professor Laura Keiko Gila Ackerman, who did a postdoc at Princeton and now is serving at Arizona State. And Jay, Peter and I can talk about our daughters for several days. It felt longer. So the focus of the book is how one organization, Pueo, Partnerships and Unlimited Educational Opportunities was successful in getting kids into college because we had a laser focus. We had very high expectations of the kids. But also we would work like Jeffrey Canada does in his Harlem Children's Zone. We worked 24 seven to do this and we had incredible donors in Hawaii. One of them is on this call and it's Peter Hoffenberg and the Sidney Stern Foundation and it's just really wonderful. And I have to mention these people, the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation, the Harry and Jet Weinberg Foundation, Unbound Philanthropy. One run by these wonderful young couple. Everyone to me is younger than 55, so Bill Reeves and Debbie Berger. And an array of other people who were just so instrumental. We had a huge endowment in our program sponsored by the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation, but I also made sure that we spent as little money as possible in every single child. So the amount of money was spent on every child each year was two years. And if you multiply that by the length of the program, which is seven. So we're spending $14,000 per child over seven years. And we guarantee that kid, almost guarantee. There's 15% that did not go on to higher learning or college. But that's a huge percentage in the United States. And it comes down to really focusing on kids and getting enormous amounts of help by DOE principles. And let me just say this publicly and the DOE is doing a great job. No one ever says that, but they are. And the principles have enormous responsibility. The teachers have enormous responsibility. And my solution to all this is formulate programs that are private schools. Puto was the base and of course you have to get the permission of whoever's the head of the school and Jim Scott was a real mensch. And he really supported the program and really helped me in many ways. And we had many discussions about the philosophy of the program. But you need to have people in every community. And I think it's the responsibility of private schools who have like often 100% rates of kids going to college. I mean, look at Puno, look at the Elani, look at Mid-Pak. These schools look at Kamehameha, they have enormous endowments. And they are able to do marvelous thing with their kids. But aren't they all our kids? I guess that's my key question. And I'm gonna be quiet for a while because there are three of us. No, let me ask you two or three little things. Okay. What's the secret sauce that motivates the kids to participate? You know, you make it as enjoyable as possible. I'm just gonna tell you about one class. We had in Pueyo for almost, when I was headed, now that it's run by a wonderful woman named Dr. K. Howe Kailoha Skullian. And she has two people working for her in her office that are absolutely superb. So just because the old guy leaves doesn't mean the program is not still wonderful, of course it's wonderful. But the secret sauce is combining academics with experiential classes. And what I mean by that is, in the morning, during the third year, the kids had math in English, which are fairly traditional subjects. But then in the afternoon, they had magic. And there is a man who was a longtime administrator at Puneau named Dr. Brad Kerwin. And you want kids to speak and be sure of themselves and have self-confidence, put them in a magic class. And Brad Kerwin was one of the people I went out when I was recruiting kids. Because by the end, we were recruiting from over 20 public schools. And we had 85 schools just in the public area alone that were part of the program. And we would go out and the principal's nominated. That's a very important part of the secret sauce. And we accepted their nominations as long as they were on free or reduced lunch and in the great middle academically. And Brad would do magic tricks with the kids. And he'd enchant everyone walking into the offices of all these DOE schools. By giving people their card, which he would light on fire, right? And she'd be like, oh my goodness. And from then on, it was easy street. And DOE principal's a superintendent. See that we work with several super, but the most recent ones. With Kathy Matayoshi and Superintendent Kishimoto. They're lovely people and you can work easily with them. But you just have to, if you, who likes someone coming up in a conversation and you critique them for 95% of the conversation? Really? That's how you're going to promote kids' education? I think you have to be supportive. And of course, you have principals like, new one, a principal like James Toyoka. Or you have Amy Arakawa, who is out at Kahelu. And then you have people in the community like, if you're in Kahelu, the name Rapun is very important. And John Rapun, and Paul Rapun, and Charlie Rapun, Josh Rapun, all those Rapun brothers were very helpful, including their sister, Martha, in supporting Poyle. So you build partnerships. And by the way, because he's in the investigative business, and you may know him, Jay, Matt Levi was also very helpful. And he has this wonderful martial arts program at KPT. And he would always nominate kids. And Matt is a gruff looking guy, but both his parents were political scientists at the University of Hawaii. And they escaped Nazi Germany. And so most people don't know that about Matt, but he is just a lovely guy. So Peter, why would a philanthropic organization support a program like this? What is attractive about this program? Precisely everything that Dr. Arakawa suggested. It's well thought out. I like that Poyle was willing to do self-evaluation, so to see what works and did not work. And also in doing so, it's not a one-size-fits-all. I think that's one of the difficulties with education. Even though I talked about a national program, I've been an educator for 30 years. Each semester, almost each week, it's different. So what I like about Dr. Arakawa is it has a strong institutional base. You have to buy into Punahou, right? You got trust Punahou. I think you need to, as we suggested, believe in a marriage of public and private. So you can't be a cheerleader for private schools and denigrate the public. Or what we know, the reverse here, right, is the anti-Punahou center. You can't go to a basketball game and play for Punahou, not expect calls against you. It just happens. All right, so we have to transcend that. I think we have to admit something which Dr. Arakawa suggested, but it's hard to swallow into democracy. You can't serve everybody. So as you suggest, there will be some room for whatever reason and not going to participate. And you also have to admit that, but hope that you grow over time. So it is a wonderful program, and though it does not include, it says it doesn't include thousands of people, right? I mean, you're talking about taking kids who otherwise would not have a chance and relying upon their experiences as being a model. As a grantmaker, I was just at, as a grantmaker, it has a solid budget. So I, and I know that Dr. Arakawa has put his Tesla away, so the funders cannot see it. But that, you know, when you're funding, and if you're, I mean, you have to look at the taxpayers, right, as funders for public education. So they too want to see a bang for their shuffle or their buck. So all of those things I think make it, I would suggest that are all sharing this around the country, but also advising people that it's not a cookie cutter. So take the basic principles and be willing to adjust. For example, not all private schools are really geared towards academia, right? We've seen in this country, private schools being a refuge for people who don't like secularism, who don't like integration. So you gotta be careful your partnership is as well, right? And by the flip side, they're public schools who could actually play the role of Pudda, you know, Frost School of Science, other famous public schools that are really more like Prunahoe, and it could be a public marriage, not necessarily a private public. So as a social scientist, I like the fact that the basic principles can be applied universally, and you have to be willing to make some concessions for the local circumstance. And I think Carl's absolutely right that one of the reasons people are angry right now is that one side is constantly critiquing and complaining about the other side. The other side is constantly critiquing and complaining about the other side. That's sometimes for good reason, but you can't have a compromise or a conversation with that. So I would, anybody who's listening, I really would urge them to read the book seriously. So read the book for what it has achieved and what could be applied in your own neighborhood. I mean, there are a lot of things that Carl said, that make Punahoe like the New York Yankees. I mean, you can afford some mistakes on free agency. A lot of other teams cannot. You know you haven't known who's gonna open the wallet, right? So there are certain advantages that Punahoe has, but contrary to what other people do with their advantages, Punahoe's putting them to good use, right? And it's not what you inherit or not, it's what you do with your inheritance that matters. So Carl, why have you done this? I mean, you're a teacher. You didn't have to do this. Oh, you could have led a less complicated life. I might not do it. You wish you would. You wish you would. Well, you know, you really gone out to a delimits of altruism here. Why? Jay, what other question could there be? What's going on? Jay, there is one more picture that you can put up and it features JFK. That picture is interesting because, you know, I begin the book this way and I talk about how, because you're asking now about my personal rationale and the, you know, the David McCulloch senior said, you know, you can't, there is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. And the reason he said that is because you're influenced by many people and JFK is standing with a man and that man and his little brother were orphans since St. Louis, their parents died. And so that man and his little brother were shipped to an auntie and uncle in New York City. And the auntie and uncle were kind of elderly and so they couldn't take care of them. And so what happened was they were sent to a very good private prep school. I always laugh at the name. The name of the school was, well, now it's called the Governor's Academy. Thank God. But at that point it was called Governor Dumber and not a name you want for a school. But that was the name of the original governor. I think it's the oldest school in the United States. I think it was found in the pre-revolutionary war. But anyway, the Governor Dumber and these two boys thrived at this school and one went to Harvard, one went to MIT. And one of those boys is my father, Lee Ackerman, who is standing with JFK who was a pilot, flew in all areas of World War II. And then when it became a successful businessman and later a gubernatorial candidate. And I want to say to both of you, when President Kennedy and my dad lost in Arizona, they were very gracious. And my father became friends with Barry Goldwater and with Paul Fanon who beat him. But he was never of their political persuasion but he was still friendly. So my theory is that my dad and John McCain, depending if Arizona remains in the blue, will be doing a jig together up there in heaven along with the dancing Congressman Lewis. But anyway, long story short is, and I think my mother was very instrumental and this comes out in the book. She was a Vassar graduate. She took us to anti-war demonstrations in Los Angeles. We went on the Chicano moratorium which is often overlooked in the civil rights movement in 1969 where people were shouting out, get a no patrici, country yes, no war, et cetera, et cetera. But she was very interested in people looking at all sides of an issue but she happened to have a liberal bent, liberal to left bent I should say in all honesty. And she was a teacher at Broadway Elementary School which is right down the street from Santa Monica High School as Peter Wellnows and in Venice. And those were the major influences and my brothers and sisters also went into wonderful occupations and Jay, I would not be, I really should mention this, that my younger sister has started an all girls public school at LA High School called the Gala School, Girls Academic Leadership Academy and last year was our first graduating class that started in seventh grade. So this is an all girls public school. It's the first one in California for about 150 years. So I think altruism, whether it comes from the Jewish tradition, whether it comes from the parents, whether it comes from the milieu, I mean, Peter and I are both Berkeley graduates. So, I mean, it's sort of the milieu that you grew up with, but also I think it's extraordinarily important. And I listened very carefully to what Betsy DeVos says. I don't agree with her all the time. I would say most of the time, but I respect her opinion. I think she is very interested in education, but I must say I listened probably much more closely to people like Jeffrey Canada, because he is the guy. And he basically says there are no kids that cannot be educated. You just have to have the right teacher. And I guess that's my philosophy too. I copied this from Jeffrey Canada. That was very long, but sorry. Okay, I think we got a good picture if you're not Carl. So Peter to close, because we're almost out of time. I'd be interested in your reaction to all of this, to the book, to what Carl is doing, to the contribution that he's making, not only directly, but through all these people that are involved in the program. It's a lot of people and changes perhaps the way they think and do and live their lives. What effect does that have on the state? And if we took the book and the Pueo program and we made it ubiquitous, what effect would that have on the country? It would have an outstanding effect without any doubt. Positive. But as the final comment would face some resistance, as Carl knows, it's a model which we should think of as a social contract, because it involves different types of work, different homes, different sense of public and private. It's a beautiful contract. And I think if people are willing to, as I said, read the book, not to duplicate it, but to read the book and follow the principles and punish as far as principle, I think it's a no-brainer. I do think though that, and we'll talk about this some of the time, maybe three of us, there are some structural problems with education in America that in order for this to be applied and I would like it to be applied, have to be addressed. For example, teachers and what are the teachers' responsibilities? Because so often the public schools, teachers are not just teaching, right? They're doing childcare, they're disciplining, they're dealing with students who should be in a class, but in a special classroom. So all that is to say, embrace what Carl has vision and think about how it can be applied in rather specific areas. But having said that, I'm gonna give you what seems to be self-contradictory, which is not. In order for it to be applied in specific areas, we need a national policy. We need a national thing. You said that before, didn't you? Right, but I have and I will still believe it and it makes me further to the left than Carl since I actually believe in planning. We're the only modern society that doesn't plan, but you can plan educationally without denying local sovereignty and democracy and all those things we allegedly hold too. And I think Carl gives us a pretty good model. That should be public and private. It shouldn't be one or the other. It has to include teachers, principals, families. It's not a confrontation between parents and teachers and not a confrontation between teachers and principals. But all that takes something which I'm not sure the country at this moment can do, which is really to buy in to the collective general interest and to see that buying into the collective and general interest does mean you're not gonna get everything you want, right? You have to get in the mindset where compromise actually gives you more than if you did not compromise. We're just having, we're struggling with that idea. Buying into the general good admits that some of what you like, it ain't gonna happen. But you're gonna win out in the long run. And I think that's part of, Carl, I don't want to speak for Carl, but I mean, when I read and I know about Pueyo, these are a lot of things that I look into. I mean, parents have to buy into it and by buying into it, they have to say, all right, this kid who may be in a very conservative religious pocket somewhere is gonna be exposed to other things. They have to buy into that. And you have to buy into Carl and the principal's selecting the teacher. So all of that is kind of a matter of trust, right? And we need that's something the country, sometimes it's good not to trust, but the possibility of trusting is important, I think. All right, so long winded it up and that should set up the next meeting. Yes, trust and the general good. That should be the next discussion, the general good and how important it is for our citizens and not only be educated and qualified to vote, but also to be concerned about the general good, the social compact if you will. Carl, where can I get this book? I'd like to know. If you just Google a success story in public education or you go to Amazon and put in my name Carl Ackerman. So it's readily available on Amazon right now. I purposely kept the book cost low, it's paperback and the Kindle version is very inexpensive. So everyone should be able to buy it. And Jay, if I may conclude by saying, you know, everyone in this program really contributed and Peter, when he had spare pens and pencils and found things in classrooms, he would put them in a little box and he would send them to me and a lot of these kids didn't have these kind of utensils and I would give them to them or he would come and make a special delivery. I know it was things that were lost, Peter. I know it wasn't afraid. None of them were marked UH, but you were just so generous and this was true of the donors in general. They were just really wonderful. And of course, none of this could have happened without having a president like Jim Scott and the continuation of course is with the wonderful president who also is a historian like Peter myself, Michael Latham. So it's just, you know, maybe it has to do with history teaching and historians also. Thank you Carl Ackerman, Peter Haffenberg, great discussion. I hope we can do it again and I wish you well on the program. I wish the country well on the program. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye.