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heather foster:welcome to all of you. i want to welcome youto the white house. my name is heather foster. i am the associate director hereat the white house office of public engagement, and it's myjob to basically do what we're doing today: to makesure that you connect, you feel connectedwith the white house, invite you here to attendbriefings, tours, activities, and often interact withour senior leadership.

so i want to welcome youhere today on behalf of the president, the first lady,senior advisor valerie jarrett. (cheers and applause) we have a wonderful morningset up of briefings. i just want to kind of walkthrough how we're going to run the event here today. and we are very excited thatyou all are all on social media. later on this morning you'llhear from my director, jon carson, the director ofoffice of public engagement,

and he is allabout social media. he loves groups thatblog, that tweet. and to just tellyou a quick story, it's really important in thework that we do here and how the president gets his message out. and we use so much ofit on social media, and we use so muchof it on twitter. so recently you might have heardthat the president called on congress to make sure thatthey extend the payroll tax.

and so, back in december, welaunched a campaign for a week, basically, telling all of ourgroups to make sure that they tell what their individual storyis if they have an extra $40 in their paycheck, andthis went far and wide. people sent us videos. they tweeted about it. they did videosin their bathroom. (laughter) it was amazing to see forso many people what $40 did.

and this was the type of thingonce everyone saw how much $40 in one paycheck meant,all of a sudden, we got a payroll extension. (applause) so it's amazing to see whatcan be done on social media. and so i just want to make surethat you guys understand our process here today. there's some key things aboutthe white house that often make things like today complicated.

security is very tight. so once you enter into thebuilding, you cannot enter, you cannot leave. so that is an importantthing to remember. so in case -- you can gooutside if you need to make a phone call. i know you all are mothers. so i understand theimportance of checking your phone regularly.

service in herecan get very low. so you might only have abouttwo bars on your phone, but once you exit,you'll have full service. so if you need to leave, feelfree to exit out the back this way, go out the doubledoors, you'll see staff. in the case thatyou get thirsty, there's a cafeteria out here. you can grab some water, coffee. so i encourage you to goahead and get up and leave.

restrooms, you should have seenall of them, but just in case, you need to go outthese side doors, go up the first set of stairs,and you'll see restrooms available. and so i think that'sit logistically. we have a greatlineup of speakers. you're going to hear fromthe director of our domestic policy council. you're going to hear from thefirst lady's chief of staff.

and you're also going tohear from some of our agency representatives. we're going to hear from a lotof african american women who are senior leadership herein the obama administration. so, i just wanted tomake sure -- (applause) -- that you all get theexperience today of seeing the vast amount of women thatwe have here in the obama administration, but then alsohearing from our top leadership on important issues.

so i hope you cameready with questions, ready to really make sure thatyou understand the policies, and to make sure that you saythat you're here on twitter. so i believe thehandle is at mochas. speaker:no. mochas@wh. heather foster:mochas@wh. and we always ask people to alsoput pound at the white house. so you can say, i was here foran office public engagement

event pound at the white house. so you can start tweeting that,put it on your facebook page. i saw all of you takinglovely pictures up here. so make sure that you go aheadand add that to your facebook and your twitter now. just to tell you alittle bit about myself, i worked in the administrationfor the past three years. my background is ineducation and policy. i am from atlanta, georgia,and i think i saw --

woo, georgia girls! and i am a proud memberof delta sigma theta sorority incorporated. i saw the sororstaking pictures. love y'all. i'm sure some otherorganizations are represented here as well, yeah. but, no, i welcome allgreek organizations, and it's great to seethe variety of women.

do we have anywomen from chicago? audience member:yeah! heather foster:yay! i moved here from chicago. i lived in chicagofor about ten years. so lots of love forchicago, as always. and i thought i saw someone onthe list yesterday from duluth, georgia, because i wentto duluth high school. audience member:woo!

heather foster:all right, yay duluth! any women from california? (cheers) west coast! we're heading out to la. any texas? new york? always the east coastin the house, wow. did i miss any?

northwest, washington, oregon? audience member:charlotte. heather foster:the south,the rest of the south. lots of love for the south,north carolina, florida. audience member:ohio. heather foster:ohio, yes! audience member:arizona. heather foster:i was about to say southwest. all right.

audience member:arizona? heather foster:and of course the dmv. okay, okay, okay. so we're all represented. did i miss any areas? any cities, anybodyelse wants to shout out? audience member:michigan. heather foster:michigan, yes. audience member:midwest.

heather foster:okay. all right, so let's go aheadand get started on our policy briefing. we have -- what we're goingto have is we'll have two panelists, and they aregoing to give brief remarks. i will moderate, and then we'llhave some question and answer time, and then we'll hear fromsome of our senior leadership in terms of speakers. so today we haveour first panel.

and dr. nadine gracia from thedepartment of health and human services is going totake the stage for us. nadine is our assistantsecretary for minority health at the department of healthand human services. and then we alsohave jocelyn frye. jocelyn is a deputyassistant to the president. and director of policy andspecial projects for the first lady. so this is her right-handwoman in terms of policy.

these two women are amazing,and i'm going to allow them to introduce themselves and thengive some brief remarks about the work thatthey've been doing. and then we'll takeyour questions. make sure you stand, go aheadand say your city again, or your chapterthat you belong to, and we'll take your question. so... jocelyn frye:good morning.

audience:good morning. jocelyn frye:it's wonderfulto see all of you here. this is very exciting. we should do this everyday. as heather said,i'm jocelyn frye. i work for the first lady. i'm her policy director. and i thought i would talk alittle bit about her work on "let's move", the childhoodobesity initiative that she's

been spearheading since the,almost since we started. and i've been here since daytwo, so i feel like a veteran. and why don't i give you justa quick overview of what we've been doing, maybe talk alittle bit about how folks can get involved. and then after nadine speaks,if you all have more questions, i'm happy to answer them. as many people know, as probablyi'm sure all of you know, one of the major initiativesthat the first lady has been

focused on is an initiativearound ending childhood obesity. and she has often said that thisis an issue that she selected largely out of herexperience as a mom. and so it's an experience thati'm sure resonates with many of you really trying to figure outhow to make sure that her own family was eating right,juggling a busy family life at home between her and thepresident long before they were the first ladyand the president, and really trying to figureout how to make it all work.

and what she discovered,not surprisingly, is that the struggle she wasfacing was one that was not unique to her, and it is onethat cuts across really all races, all economic levels,all parts of the country, and it is a huge issue thataffects children across the country. and i think what struck her themost is the potential long-term impact of it. that it's one thing to justmake sure your kids are eating

healthy, but when you realizesome of the data that suggests that this generation of kids ismore likely to have diabetes and some other very serioushealth conditions, and there are some questionsabout their life span in comparison to prior generations,it really sort of brings home the enormity of the problem. and the first lady wanted totackle this issue like she tackles most issues, which isnot sort of come at it with sort of a knee jerk solution, butreally try to think critically

about what would make sense. and out of that work came a verycomprehensive report done by the domestic policy council herethat laid out essentially a roadmap for tacklingchildhood obesity. and that became sortof the underpinnings, the policy underpinnings, ofwhat was launched in february 2010 as let's move. it is a national campaignto end childhood obesity in a generation.

and rather than pick anarbitrary year for ending childhood obesity, we decidedto take sort of a long-term approach, because it tookus a while to get here. it took us, when youlook back at the data, it's taken us a couple ofdecades to really get to the point where today, you know, athird of kids are overweight or obese, and when you lookat communities of color, particularly african americanand hispanic populations, it's closer to half of thekids are in that category.

so it took us awhile to get here, and our view was it was goingto take us a while to really eradicate the problem. the campaign itself,the initiative, has a number of components. i could spend hourstalking about it, and i'm sure that wouldnot be interesting. but, it has sort of four prongsto it: one that focuses on schools and healthyeating in schools.

one that focuses on reallyincreasing physical activity. she often talks about the factthat this generation of kids is far more sedentary thanmaybe what we remember. and, you know, havingto -- you know, we all had to gooutside and play, and even if we didn't feel likeit, we got sent outside anyway, and came in when thelights got turned off, and that type of thing. whereas, kids now, the datasuggests that they are sitting

in front of some sort of objectfor at least seven hours a day. so the physical activityis clearly an issue. food access, again, an issuethat i'm sure resonates with many of the folks in this room. it's hard to tell people toeat healthy if they don't have grocery stores intheir neighborhoods, if the food is not affordable,that type of thing. so that's been a core component. and also the issue of justmaking sure people have the

right information tomake healthy choices. the first lady has often talkedabout going to the grocery store looking at those labels, andthey are incomprehensible. so if you can't figure outwhat the healthy choice is, then you're probably not goingto make the right choice. and fortunately for us, we'vegotten a lot of really terrific response from everypossible sector, from communities on the ground,from faith organizations, from individualsto large companies,

and we've been pleasedwith the success. we've worked closely with folkslike nadine and hhs and many of the agencies, and it is verymuch an administration-wide initiative. we just came off of a veryrewarding, but a little tiring, three-day tour to reallycelebrate the second anniversary of let's move. and the focus of that three-daytour, we went to iowa, arkansas, we went to texas, we wentto florida in homestead

and orlando. and the idea behind the tour wasreally to highlight not simply successes but really totalk about how let's move is operating at both a verysort of statewide level, the biggest levels, andalso individual levels. so we went from iowa, where theyhave a statewide initiative to become the healthieststate in the country. and they have a wholehost of folks, we had 14,000 kids in the stadium, tothe first lady going and having

dinner with a family who hadbeen making changes in their own home, working with "my plate",which is the icon that was launched by the department ofagriculture over the summer. and we're going tocontinue to do that. and there are lots ofways to get involved, from doing things inyour own communities. there are let's move citiesand towns which hhs oversees, and working in your localcommunity around, you know, whether it's with yourchurches, or with girl scouts,

or whatever you want to do toreally try to make basic changes in your community. and i'm happy to talkabout that in more detail. i think i'm going to stop therefor a moment and let nadine speak, and then i'm happy toanswer any questions that you might have. so that's just a snapshotof what we've been doing, but i invite all of youto join us in the effort, because i think you all knowbetter than anyone sort of the

urgency and need to reallyaddress the problem. so i look forward to talkingto you more about it. nadine gracia:good morning. nadine gracia:it is really a pleasurefor me to be here this morning and to joinjocelyn on this panel. again, my name is nadine gracia,and i am the acting deputy assistant secretary for minorityhealth and the acting director of the office of minority healthat the department of health and human services,or hhs for short.

i am a pediatrician by training,and so the health of mothers, the well-being of mothers,and certainly children, is really important to me. and thinking in particular aboutminority health issues has been a passion of mine and certainlythe whole reason for being of my office, which really has as itsmission to develop programs and policies that will help useliminate health disparities or the health gaps that we seein minority communities. and it's truly just an excitingtime and an important time for

us to be working on this issue,because this is certainly an administration and, asjocelyn has talked about, an administration that reallyunderstands the importance of health. and in understanding thatimportance of health has really focused on prevention. and that's so important whenwe talk about the health of minority populations. the reason being is becausethe statistics really are

troublesome, and i'm suremany of you know them. and i actually want to commendyour organization, actually, for the community service workthat you do in addressing health and health disparities. certainly we see that thereare higher rates of diabetes, obesity, cancer, inminority populations. we look at hiv. african american women havehigh rates of hiv infection. infant mortality, africanamerican women have twice the

rate of infant mortality, wherebabies are dying in their first year of life. these are reallyconcerning statistics, but this is such a great time,because this administration has put health really as apriority and at the forefront. and one of the key ways thatit's done that is through the affordable care act, the newhealthcare law that president obama signed in 2010, whichbasically is one of the best ways and strategies that we havereally to improve the health of

all the nation, but really forus to tackle the disparities that we see in minority andunderserved communities. and i just want to highlightjust a few ways that that is being accomplished. when i talked about some ofthose disparities that we see -- diabetes, cancer, heart disease-- many of those conditions are preventable. but some of the challenges withpreventing those diseases is that to get thepreventive screenings,

we see that minorities oftendon't receive those preventive screenings, or that they go lateto get the preventive care that they need to stay healthy. and once they actuallyget that care, often they don't receivethe same quality of care. and what the affordable care actis doing is really to help make prevention affordableand accessible. so many of those screeningsthat i've talked about, such as screening for diabetes,screening for obesity,

tobacco cessation, screeningfor blood pressure, with the health care law, newhealth plans are required to cover those preventivescreenings at no cost to you. that means no co-pay,no deductibles, so that we can make thoseservices accessible to all people. we also want to ensure withregards to infant mortality and healthy pregnancy that mothershave access to the services that they need to have ahealthy pregnancy.

and so, again, thosetypes of screenings, screening for conditionsthat can harm the mother, that can harm the baby, areactually provided, as well, at no cost. there are also services thatwill be implemented this year with regards to breastfeeding support, including access tobreast feeding supplies. because we know that some ofthose barriers exist as far as getting -- (applause)

yes. some of the barriers exist as togetting access to the supplies but also to encouraging mothersto be able to breast feed, to be in supportiveenvironments, not just in the hospitalbut when you go home. those women that are inthe workplace, et cetera, to ensure that theyhave the skills, as well as the clinicians,people like myself, being able to actually counseleffectively mothers to encourage

them to breast feed. and our surgeon general hasreally been a pioneer in this area. she issued a call to actionto support breast feeding last year. but the affordable care actis doing other things where we're also investing in clinicsthat we want to have community health centers, more communityhealth centers in underserved areas, to really help patientsand others get access to the

care that they need. we're investingin the workforce, so trying to incentivize andencourage providers to actually practice in those communitiesthat need it most. but we also have provisions thatreally help to protect women. you know, insurance companiesactually used to be able to charge higher premiums forwomen where -- i'll give you an example -- that a 22-year-oldwoman could be charged as much as 150% higher in her premiumthan the same age man,

just because of her gender. or that insurance companiescould actually deny women coverage because of preexistingconditions, such as cancer, or could you believeit, having a baby. and that no longer in the case. insurance companiescannot do that. absolutely. there are also provisions whenwe talk about children and youth and young adults where we knowthat there often is a high

insurance rate for young adults,especially as they are crossing into adulthood. and so one of the provisions inthe affordable care act is that young adults can actually stayon their parents' insurance plan until the age of 26. and that's the case whether --they can actually be married. they can be financiallydependent on you. they can actually havestarted employment, but they actually can stay onyour insurance until the

age of 26. and as mothers, i'm sure thatgives great piece of mind, to know that as your childrenare making that transition that they don't have to worry abouttheir access to healthcare. these are just some of theprovisions in the affordable care act. and, as you see, it's the reasonwhy it's so important for us to continue to move ahead, toreally ensure that this, by this strategy, by thislaw, we are able to actually

encourage prevention and reallyhave a healthier nation for everyone in the u.s. there is also strategies that wehave out of our department that under the leadershipof secretary sebelius, who is certainly a dynamic womanand really taking charge in leading us in this departmentto address disparities. last year we actually releasedour first ever action plan to reduce racial and ethnic healthdisparities, the first one ever. and this is a plan that allof our agencies within hhs are

committed to. so we have leadership from thetop levels of the department who have said, we will makedisparities and the elimination of disparities a priority. we're addressing issues suchas transforming healthcare. we're addressingworkforce issues. we're looking at the researchthat we need to do to continue to better understand thedisparities that we see and better target our interventions.

but we're also looking at how wemake decisions with our programs and policies to say, how willthis program or policy help us to reduce disparities. and then we're also tacklingcertain disease issues, like heart disease,influenza, flu, we're in the middleof flu season, tackling those type ofdisparities that we see to make sure that we can eliminatethem and reduce them over time. and this is really a tremendouseffort for the department,

because what we see now is thatwe have the leverage through the affordable care act, throughour first ever action plan on disparities to reallymake this happen. but we also in the office ofminority health have something called the nationalpartnership for action to end health disparities. and this partnership foraction is a community driven, community organized approachthat we work in partnership with communities who have actuallyidentified what they can do to

actually help us andhealth disparities. and so last year, as well, thenational stakeholders strategy for achieving healthequity was released. and we have regional councilsacross the country comprised of and led by community leaderswho are working activity will address the disparity issuesthat they see in their regions. so you can see there's a lotof momentum that we have in the department, and we're workingacross the federal government really to address these issues.

and i'll conclude with justone example of a program in our office, the officeof minority health, which is related to infantmortality awareness. this is a campaign thatwas started in 2007, called "a healthybaby begins with you." again, as i mentioned, becausewe see that the rates of infant mortality for african americaninfants are twice that of whites, we see that a higherrate as well in american indian and alaskan native infants.

and so this is a campaign wherewe're working to make sure that women understand the risksfor infant mortality. it's one of the higher ratesof preterm birth or low birth weight infants. and we've expanded thatprogram now to also include a preconception health programwhere we're actually teaching college students about theimportance of preconception health and that they can becomeambassadors to teach their peers so that we can basically have apipeline of women who understand

the importance of preconceptionhealth and really help us to eliminate and reducethis disparity. so i'm very excited to be here. i commend you foreverything that you do, in particular being themothers that you are, and i look forward to answeringany questions that you have. thank you. heather foster:so, at this time, let's take a few questions.

let's start from thisside of the room. make sure you say yourname and your chapter. christine garrett:good morning. my name is christine garrett,and i represent the howard county chapter of mochamoms, and i'm one of their co-presidents. and i'm a residentof baltimore county. and i have a veryinteresting dynamic. i have two kids, 8 and 6.

i am presiding over a chapterwhere the moms are very engaged in leaving and being organic andbeing very thoughtful about what they eat and how they move. you mentioned thelet's move campaign. my children attendbaltimore county schools, and what's very interesting isthat recess has been considered an option and notsomething mandatory. i grew up where lunchand recess were together. so we're talking 30 to maybe45 minutes of lunch and just

break time. what i would like to know ishow is the let's move campaign directly or indirectlyencouraging or influencing policy on the stateand local level to, for lack of a better word,enforce or encourage recess not being an option butmore so a mandate? because i think a lot of ushave discussed over just in conversation that pe classesare just being wiped out in certain areas.

and i find it very unsettlingthat as a mom that my children only get maybe 20 minutesto break from the day, and yet the teachers arewondering why the kids are bouncing off thewalls after lunch. and i'm not goingto discuss the food. i'm not going to go there,because i'm sure someone else will address that issue. but i would like to know whatis our first lady doing with the policy that wehave, in let's move,

how are they doing toaddress the physical activity of our children? jocelyn frye:that's a great question, and it hits the nailright on the head. there are a couple of thingsthat we are doing to address it. the first thing, though, i'llpreface it by saying is that we have some real limitsin what we can do. we can't force schoolsto make those decisions, nor do we want to.

we want schools and districts tohave the discretion to make the decisions that seemright for them. one of the things thatwe've done is, first of all, emphasis -- emphasize is oneof our key priorities really increasing the percentage ofkids who participate in physical activity and get, you know,60 minutes of play a day, which is a core principleof the let's move campaign. and one of the programsthat we've lifted up, that we emphasize a lot, isa usda program called the

healthierus school challenge. it's a program thatif schools join it, and you can either be abronze, a gold, a silver, or a gold with distinction,and if you join it, you essentially are making acommitment to do a certain set of things. meet a certain set of standardswhen it comes to the nutritional value, the food that you provideto do nutrition education with all of your students.

and also to provide for acertain amount of physical activity for your kids a day. so it is a program. if you join it, our view isthat you are hitting all the components that we think arenecessary to make sure that kids are getting both healthy foodand a sufficient amount of physical activity. and one of our goals in thereport that the domestic policy council issued was to increasethe number of schools that

participated in thatprogram over time. our first goal was todouble that number. we met that goal last year. we were trying toget to 1,250 schools. we exceeded it. and then we have a goalof adding at least 1,000 schools a year that do that. when we went onour tour last week, we actually have alreadymet the june 2012 goal.

in fact, we've gone pastit by a significant margin. so we are going to continue toreally push schools in the way that we can to really encouragethem to invest in physical activity and to make that acore component of what they do. the other thing i would say isthat the first lady often talks about one of the very firstevents that we did to highlight the schools that wereparticipating in that program, was out in alexandria. and one of the principals saidto her essentially what you

said, which is that he foundthat their kids did better when they were not only giving themhealthy food but they were setting aside a sufficientamount of time for recess and that they performedbetter academically. there's data to show that. and i think the dynamic thatwe're facing is that there are schools that feel like theyare under a lot of pressures. they sometimes, you know,mistakenly think that recess is a way to meet some other goals.

but what we've reinforced isthat if you talk to the schools that are actuallymaking this work, they will tell you their kids dobetter when they actually have a balanced approachto these issues. the last thing that i'll sayabout it is that we'll also made a point of lifting up schoolsthat are not just in sort of more elite communities whereyou might argue that they have greater resources toprovide healthier food. one of the schools that thefirst lady has visited is out in

southeast d.c. riverterrace elementary. that was one of the firstsilver/gold schools under the usda program. not any additional resources,but just a committed principal who believed in trying to makesure that her kids -- it's, you know, almost i think 99.9%african american population, but she understood that physicalactivity was a core component, and they've madethat commitment. so we've tried to lift upschools across the country that

have been doing what we thinkis necessary to ensure both physical activityand healthy food. the very last thing, though, iwill say about school lunch to anticipate a question out thereis that one of the biggest accomplishments for let's moveis pushing the child nutrition law and making that become law. it was the most significantchange in schools and to school lunch in over 15 years and willmandate that schools across the country retire nutritionstandards to ensure that they

are actually gettinghealthier school lunches. so that, for us, was an enormousaccomplishment and i think will do a lot to make sure thatkids are getting healthy food. but thank you for the question. heather foster:right here. latisha elcock:good morning. my name is latisha elcock. i'm from the alexandriachapter in northern virginia. i really love what you had tosay about a healthy baby starts

with you and how there arepreconception classes offered to college level women who areconsidering becoming a mom. i'm concerned about thatpopulation that's not in college. there is a giant populationof women in this country that graduate high school or notand then move on and they begin to work. how does the administration planto reach out to those women who may not be on a college campusbut still need this information

to make sure they too canproduce healthy babies and be effective moms? nadine gracia:that's a great point,a great question. actually, with that campaign,we actually teach the college women, but the college womenthen interface and interact in the community. so it's actually notlimited to the campus. actually, it's that they goout and become ambassadors to the community.

and so that can transcend thosewho are actually in college and those who are not in college. but we also have -- actually, itwas just announced this month -- an initiative called the strongstart initiative that hhs just released to actually help,as well as being a campaign, issuing $40 million in grantsto healthcare providers to community coalitions and othersto also work on this issue with regards to preconception health,to try to reduce the number of preterm births that wesee, low birth weight,

as well as reducing thenumber of elected deliveries, c-section deliveries thatwe see before 39 weeks, because that can be a riskto the mother's health. and so we actually areinvesting in that way. so there are many differentways that we are doing that, but we certainly know that wewant to target those who are most at risk and utilizedifferent vehicles so it doesn't just come from us as providers,but it can come from peer to peer.

and i think that's a veryeffective strategy for us, because it comes from people whothey trust and who they know in heather foster:oh, wow. one from this side of the room. robin page:i was just thinkingabout -- i'm sorry, i'm robin page fromhampton, virginia, hampton roads chapter -- wasthinking about the let's move. and as far as exercise, becausewe know our children are in front of the screenof some sort,

is there any partnership withwii or xbox with like just dance or zumba to create maybe alet's move exercise program? jocelyn frye:a couple of things. one of the things is that wealways emphasize you can get exercise in a lotof different ways. i mean, the firstlady talks about that, that it's not justgoing outside. even if you're at home and youdon't have the ability to go outside, you can turnon the radio and dance.

wii or whatever thedifferent opportunities are, the key is to move. so we definitely emphasize that. one of our priorities thisyear is to really focus on the physical activity piece, andwe work very closely with an organization called thepartnership for a healthier america. they are the entity that hasbeen the facilitator for a lot of the big business agreementsand corporate agreements that

we've had. and so one of the strategiesthat they are looking at right now is whether or not there aresome specific initiatives that we could do withpartners like that. or there are otherinitiatives around, you know, pedometers and things like that,things that acknowledge the technological agein which we live, and try to build into thatadditional activity as well. so those are thingsthat we are exploring,

and i'm sure in the coming weeksthat we'll be able to talk about them in more detail. nadine gracia:and if i could justadd from the hhs perspective, we also have thesurgeon general who issued a vision for a healthy and fitnation and talked about many of those other ways in whichkids can actually get and when i was in practice, iwould talk to the youth in my office, and they would say,well, we don't like gym, or we don't like to be out, andwe're not athletic enough to be

in sports. and i will say, well,do you watch videos, do you watch music videos? they say, yes. i say, well, what do youdo when you watch them? well, i just sit on the couch. i say, then get up and startdancing to the music video. and so you have to be creativeand give kids different options as far as how theycan get that exercise,

because we also recognize toothat there are communities where it may not be safe for the kidsto be outside and getting that type of physical activity. but we also have the president'scouncil on fitness sports and nutrition that also works veryclosely with jocelyn's office to really promote physicalactivity, as well. and they have initiatives andcampaigns of how youth and others, adults as well, can getphysical activity on a regular basis without necessarilyneeding to have specific gym

memberships or accessin other places, but to make itaccessible, affordable, and something that can be fun. heather foster:one from this side of the room. i'll make sure to get you. i saw you. bridget obikoya:my name is bridget obikoya, and i was born and raisedin mobile, alabama, but i live here inarlington, virginia.

and i am in the southernd.c, austin d.c. chapter. and i am an advocate forsensory processing disorders and designing the home, inparticular adhd, autism, asperger's syndrome, afew things like that. and what i'd like to know is-- i know that there's a direct connection, first, betweenmovement, nutrition, and neurological disorders. and i want to know if there'sanything in particular that you all are doing thattarget children?

and i know also that adhd andother neurological disorders are on the rise most between boys,in particular african american boys. and i wanted to know if there'sanything you're doing in particular to target thatsegment of the population and as a whole? oh, and also i'd like tosay that i'm a blogger, and i blog on these issues andmy blog is b, b is for bloom. speaker:b is for bloom?

nadine gracia:well, certainlythe issue of autism and other spectrum disorders,on that spectrum, if you will, has been, it's been achallenging issue and one that really is an important publichealth issue that we've seen. we have, and actuallyunder president obama, had significant increases in ourinvestments in the research and the work that we're doing inautism, not only in research, but also in the servicesthat we provide. because we recognize that it'snot only about understanding

what causes it, but alsoensuring that those children who have autism or are on thatspectrum actually have the ability to really be fullyproductive members of their society, whetherthat's in school, whether that's intheir communities, or in their families. and so we haveactually a committee, it's called the interagencyautism coordinating committee that we run at the department ofhealth and human services that

is looking at many of thethings that you have raised. looking at the research issuesand asking what types of questions do we still have yetunanswered to better understand why is autism on the rise? and how do we target ourprograms to better address that? but also, what are theservices that these youth need? whether it's educational,whether it's in health services, employment, et cetera. and then also understanding thatthere are differences that we're

seeing, whether it's inmales versus females, whether it's minoritiesor non-minorities. so we have those initiativesthat are underway to really try to address those problems,because we see that it's complex. it's multifactorial, and we'renot clear on exactly what the cause is and whyit's increasing, but we know that if wereally continue these more comprehensive efforts that wecan basically help support the

youth who have it. you have a question? tawanna smith:this actuallyfollows up a little bit. so thank you forbringing that up. my name is tawanna smith. i'm from brooklyn. i live in maryland now. i have to represent brooklyn. anyway, i'm the statecoordinator for maryland.

and i'm not goingto get choked up, but i'm a mother of afour-year-old with autism. and, woo, my husband,he was a reservist, and he was an employee ofdepartment of homeland security. so this past year we hadto make a decision for him because of insurance. so this is really aninsurance question. we had to make the decision forhim to leave homeland security to go into active duty, becausetricare paid for more of our

stuff than our federalinsurance did, unfortunately. and, you know, obviously,if you go active duty, that's going to be a cut in whatwe're going to take home for take home pay, but that'sa sacrifice that we've had to make. because, forinstance, ada therapy, one hour of ada therapy is $100. one hour -- we do speech therapyat kennedy krieger institute, which i'm sure you'refamiliar with in baltimore,

which is one of the premierplaces for, you know, in the area for childrenwith autism and autism related disorders. to go to one class costs $425. insurance pays for one month. this is maryland now. maryland mandate is verydifferent from other states. but there's so much on claritywith insurance companies and so much disparity cross states thathave families making a decision,

should we stay in this state? should we move tosomeplace like florida? should we move to pennsylvania? should we move to new jersey? that have better -- that aremandated to provide certain amount of services, or just toprovide services in general, ot, st. and i really want to knowlike what provisions are being made in the affordablehealthcare act for autism. because, as you know,it's on the rise.

and one of the things that ifight with kennedy -- not fight with -- i try to help kennedykrieger with is there are so many of our children who donot -- they don't have access. their parents just don't know. they just don't know. and they did a research studytrying to say that it was based off of, access beingbased off of race. and i said, it's notnecessarily race. it's more socioeconomics,because a white family that does

not, you know, who is in thesame socioeconomic class as a black family is going to havethe same amount of limited access. so really we want to know like-- it kind of like leads off of her question, like howis it being mandated? what provisions are being madein affordable healthcare act to allow more people to haveaccess to these services? because, quite frankly,they cannot afford it. and so, you know, my thing isif you don't pay for them now,

you're going topay for them later. so i'm really tryingto stay -- (applause) -- trying to stay at home. i mean, my options are becauseyou have to go to therapy like all day almost every day, myoption is to stay at home, but i really feel like maybei should get my public policy degree and go back and fightand be a lobbyist or something. i personally think that theremight not be as many parents of kids with autism on theseboards and, therefore,

the policy is not beingwritten correctly. nadine gracia:so you raised, certainly, an important point andone that we have seen. that the services that areprovided across states actually can differ. and, actually, oneof our agencies, the centers for medicare& medicaid services, was looking at that veryquestion to compare what states offer so that they can actuallysee what is the disparity that

we're seeing. because we would hear thesestories of parents who may move to other states to be able toget different types of services. one of the key provisions of theaffordable care act is related to what we call thepreexisting condition, one referred to as thepreexisting condition. and one of the provisions in theact is that children under the age of 19 cannot be deniedinsurance coverage because of a preexisting condition.

as in heart defects, theycannot be denied health insurance coverage. this is an important step,because insurance companies were able to deny that coverage or beable to rescind that coverage. and so that's one ofour first key levers. and i think with regards tothe services that are actually provided, this is where we havemany of our agencies that are looking at what are the servicesthat will be most effective to really help optimize thosechildren's lives so that we can

provide the evidence to showthat these are the types of services that should also becovered in the coverage and the healthcare that they receive. heather foster:okay, well, thank you. that's going to wrap oursession now for this panel. let's just give a specialround of applause. thank you, jocelynand nadine, so much. so now we have the opportunityto hear from one of the recent appointments here that thepresident made to the domestic

it was just actuallyjust a shift internally, as she worked previously as thedirector of intergovernmental affairs, cecilia munoz is nowthe new director of the domestic cecilia munoz:thank you. good morning, everybody. cecilia munoz:it's sowonderful to see all of you here. i'm so excited. i think this is a reallyawesome organization.

so i'm very excited to be herewith you and honored to be here with you and grateful thatyou've come from all over to be part of this session today. i know we're going to try tomake it as useful a day as possible, as useful to you, butalso hopefully the better we're connected, the better job we cando in the work that we're doing day in and day out forpeople around this country. so, really, thank you for yourenergy and your commitment and your time.

it means the world to us. it sort of feels like we gotpeople who have our backs a little bit. that's kind of nice. just to introduce myself alittle bit more, as you heard, i was the director ofintergovernmental affairs here at the white housefor three years. and just about a month ago, thepresident asked me to succeed the amazing melody barnes asthe director of the domestic

they are not easy shoesto fill, to say the least. but i inherited a really, reallywonderful team that's working on a range of policy issues. and before i startedwith the administration, i worked at a civil rightsorganization for 20 years, called the nationalcouncil la raza. it's the nation's largestlatino civil rights group. oh, thank you. that means a lot to me.

i grew up there. i worked there for 20 yearson a whole range of public policy issues. so while -- but the issuethat i am best known for, the issue that i have thedeepest expertise is immigration policy. i have spent my wholecareer working on education, on healthcare, on issuesof poverty and economic opportunity, on housing, on awhole range of other issues that

we work on here too. and i learned from deepexperience that we have a lot to do in this country toreally achieve our promise, and our potential, and ourcommitment to our best values as a society. and that we are most likely toachieve that dream if we are working collaboratively,if we're working together, if we are really liftingpeople up and making sure that, frankly, that we holdpolicymakers' feet to the fire.

and that's part of what you do,it's a big part of what you do, and it is essential to ourability to be successful as an administration. so, for me, it's just a hugehonor to be doing this work here in this capacityat the white house. we have teams in dpc, inthe domestic policy council, engaged very deeply in the weedson a whole range of issues. and a lot of them are reflectedin the budget that we released this week.

that was only just this week. we sort of each day is kindof like dog years here. it seems like it was longer agothan just actually three days. but we introducedthe budget on monday. and i want to raise thebudget because it's important. it's a blueprint for what thepresident has said he's trying to achieve. you heard him -- if youheard him give his speech in pottawatomie, kansas, he talkedabout our values as a society.

that we ought to be -- we oughtto continue to strive to be the kind of place where if you workhard and you play by the rules, you ought to be able to beconfident that you can raise a family and count on a goodeducation for your kids and count on access to healthcare,and be able to own a home, and put a little bitaway for your retirement. that everybody needs to beplaying by the same set of rules. and that's the kind ofcountry that we need to be,

and that's the kind of -- thoseare the kind of values that we need to continueto work towards. so he laid out that visionin his speech in kansas, and then he built on it in thestate of the union address with more specifics about,so what does it mean. if we're going to bethat kind of society, what does that meanin policy terms? how do we make thatreal for people? how do we make sure that thosevalues are working in people's

lives all around the country? so the speech is the nextopportunity to sort of provide detail. and he talked about the kindsof investments we're making in energy, and in manufacturing,and in our students, and in our workers, and in sortof reinvigorating our values in this country. and then the nextlevel of detail, and it's a lot of detail, isin the president's budget.

and so the budget -- you know,i'm not going to recommend, necessarily, that you gothrough all of the documents. although, they are availableon the white house's website. but what really matters is this:this is a document which lays out the president's blueprint. it's the roadmap for how wewant to achieve that vision, those values, and make themreal in people's lives. so it talks aboutstarting with, you know, preparing our students and ourworkers to make sure that they

are ready to meet the challengesof this growing economy. and this is a budgetwhich presents a balanced picture, right. it reduces the deficit tothe tune of $4 trillion, but it also makes reallycritical investments in the things we must be investing inif we're going to continue to grow the economy, if we're goingto continue to create jobs, and if we're going to continueto make sure that everybody has access to those jobs, and thateverybody is prepared for

those jobs. we know that there aresectors of the economy, these are businesses telling us,we're going to need millions of workers in the technology field. we're going to need millionsof workers in healthcare. we know where theneeds already are. we know where theirbusiness is telling us. we have jobs available now, andwe can't find folks to do them, because they don't havethe right training.

so that's about makingsure we're investing in our educational system. and this is an area where wehave been deeply energetically involved since day one. it also means investingin programs for workers, for people who arein the workforce, who need that training,who need those skills, people who are goinginto community college, making sure that they aregetting the training that they

need for jobs that we knoware actually available in their communities. that it's not atheoretical education. that it's education towardsgood jobs, well paying jobs, jobs that can provide benefitsand some security for people in their communities, workingwith employers who say, look, this is where we know we'regoing to need workers. let's build a curriculum so thatyou're as a community college really are doing the careertraining for the kinds of jobs

that we're going to need. the president announced acommunity colleges to careers program, an 8 billion-dollarinvestment, just this week, which is a big pieceof the federal budget. we're also investing very, veryseriously in education at the k-12 level and in higher ed. so you've probably heard ustalking about the race to the top program. there's another $850 milliongoing into the race to the

and the way that program worksis that it essentially has spurred the kinds of reformsin more than 40 states. now, not all thosestates got grants, but we used the program to makesure that those states were moving forward in reforms. the most important of which isabout making sure that we have the right accountabilitymechanisms in place to make sure every kid is moving forward inour schools and that our schools are designed to achieveeducational success for

every student. and we know that the old systemunder the no child left behind law was deeply flawed, and wehave been investing very -- right. we have invested very heavilyin reforms to that law. and, frankly, like a lot ofother things that the president is working on, likethe american jobs act, the reforms to the no childleft behind law are stuck in the congress.

we don't have the bipartisanpartners we need to get the big reforms through. so what we're doing is using thetools that we have to make sure that reforms happen anyway. race to the top is avery big piece of that. and the president announcedin his budget that we want to expand race to the top tothe higher education sector. to use those resources toget states and colleges and universities to make surethat we are making college

more affordable. this is an area where we'vemade lots of gains in the last three years. pell grants are bigger andthey are more available. we've changed the way that thecollege loan structure works so that folks only have to pay backa proportion of their income so that they can manage theirdebt successfully while they are working. that stuff is done already!

we've accomplished that already,but we know we need to do more. so these kinds of reforms thatare reflected in the president's budget are making sure thatwe keep college affordable, making sure that wehave accountability, the right accountabilitymechanisms in place in the states to make sure we're makingprogress for our students. and we're investing to the tuneof $5 billion in reforms for teachers in this country, inmaking sure that this is an honored profession, it is awell remunerated profession.

these are -- we need to makesure that we're providing the best possible training ineducation for people going into the teaching field. we need to make sure that we'renot using just a test as the one way of measuring whether ornot these folks are effective. so we're talking about thingslike game tapes, right, like peer reviews, makingsure that teachers are getting support from each otherand that we have the best, the best trained, the best paidcore of teachers and principals

in our schools, because we knowthat that's how you move the needle for our kids. so a lot of this stuff we wouldbe able to do on a bigger scale if we had legislation, and we'regoing to keep pressing for that. but this president is pressingforward with what he can do, and i have the privilege ofworking with a highly energized secretary of education who hasthe great virtue of not only being very skilledand very committed, he's really impatient.

right? but he's impatient for allthe things he should be impatient for. and to work with someone whois putting that level of energy into making sure that everystudent in this country succeeds is a great honor for me, becauseit is among the most important things we can do to make surethat our country is moving forward, that our economyis moving forward, that we are on the best possiblefooting for the work that we

need to do in this 21st centuryand in this global economy. so that's just a couple of areaswhere we've made investments. there's a lot moreto talk about. but what i want to mostsay to you is this, because i so deeply respect thecommitment that led you to be connected to this organization,that led you to take the time and energy to come here. like many of my colleagues,really like all of my colleagues, everybodyhas a story to tell.

and i hope tina tchen,sitting right there, she's going tospeak to you next, i hope you ask herfor her story as well. i have the great joy of workingwith people and for people who are deeply, deeply committed tomaking sure that when we talk about economic recovery that weare talking about every corner of this country. when we talk about supportingpeople who are looking for work that we are supporting everybodywho is looking for work,

including people who havestruggled with getting in the workforce for a long time. that when we talk aboutbuilding the economy, that we are talking about makingsure we prepare every student and every worker to fulfillto their highest potential. and the notion that nobody inthis building needs to explain why it's important to makesure that we are reaching every corner of this country andevery community and every constituency, nobodyneeds to explain that.

i mean, i've spent a careerexplaining that to people working in the civil rightscommunity and talking to policymakers about how sometimesyou have to go the extra mile for certain constituencies. because it's not a given thatif you set up a job training program that they are goingto be served by it, right. we've all done that work. we've all had that conversation. i haven't had to explain thatto anybody that i work with.

why? because my colleagues are allpeople who have been doing that work all of their careers. this is a very deep commitment,and so we have a president who is moving these values forward,who is fighting with the congress, frankly, which is notalways the most cooperative body in the federal government, whois doing what he can with the administrativetools that he's got. those administrative tools areinsufficient to do the job,

but we're doing what we canwhile we work on the big picture and fight those battles. but the most important thing isthat for all of his gifts and his oratorical skills,and his capacity, and for all of the talentedpeople that he has working with him in the federal agencies,this president can't do it by himself. we can't do it by ourselves. we really need you.

we need every pair ofhands, every voice, we need to know what you knowand see what you see in your communities allaround the country. we need to make sure thatthat is informing the work that we do. and we need to make sure we'regiving you the tools that you need to do your job well to helpbe a voice for these values that we're trying to move forward. so i don't know if we have time.

i know tina is here andshe's our next speaker. i don't know if we havetime for questions. but i just especially wantto thank you for the work do we have a couple minutes? speaker:yeah. cecilia munoz:she's letting me take two. yes? donna maria coles johnson:thank you so much for being here.

i'm donna maria coles johnson,and i'm from washington, d.c., but i'm representing thecharlotte chapter today from north carolina. and you've spoken in greatdetail about domestic policy where jobs and educationand things are concerned. and i'm a smallbusiness advocate, and one of the thingsthat i'm noticing, and i'm sure you are as well, isthat our country and the world really is moving more towardssmall business being redefined

really not as small businessesas they are currently defined but really as individual people. cecilia munoz:yeah. donna maria coles johnson:owning their own businesses and working from home. and i don't see this any moreprominent than i do with women. and i'm the work at homenetwork director for mocha moms, and so i would like to ask you:i see the president doing a lot he has signed an executive ordersharing that we need to make

sure that small businessesare taken care of. the leader of the small businessadministration has just been elevated to a cabinet level. cecilia munoz:she is awesome, by the way. donna maria coals johnson:yes, she is. cecilia munoz:we know that that'swhere we're creating jobs and that's why built into thisbudget are things like tax incentives for small businesses. built into this communitycollege is the careers program

that i just announced that's $8billion is a specific program for entrepreneurs. so it includes online trainingprograms for folks who can't necessarily get to a facilitythat's providing training, as well as broader hands onin-depth training for people who are seeking toenter this sector. and karen mills, who is ouradministrator of the small business administration, isboth very passionate and very eloquent about making sure thatwe're giving people the tools

that they need so that theycan enter this sector and be successful in this sector. and we know that the first twoyears for a small business owner are critical. that's the critical point. and she has gearedthe resources of this, of her organization of thesmall business administration. but we're also gearing theresources of the department of labor and the department ofcommerce and other sectors to

make sure that we are providingthe right incentives through our tax structure, the rightsupports through experts around the country to make sure thatpeople know, for example, how to get into the exportsector if you're a small business that'sproducing a product, to make sure that we arehelping you gain access to markets overseas. this is an area of greatenergy for this administration. because we know thatthat's how we create jobs.

so thank you for the questionand thank you for the work in it's great. one more. yes, ma'am? delna gray:hello, i'm delna grayfrom the northern prince george's county chapter,originally from los angeles. and i used to work withmelody barnes in the senate. so i'm really goodfriends with her. but i wanted to ask you aquestion about business and the

mortgage crisis andwhat's going on there. i have -- i'm alsoa stay at home mom, but i also have a realestate investment company. so, obviously, my industryhas been hit hard by the mortgage crisis. and i know the presidenttalked about what he, the plans he has in terms ofimplementing the mortgage -- cecilia munoz:yes. delna gray:-- controversy and whathe's going to ask the

mortgage companies to do torevamp the mortgages to help with people who are underwaterwith their mortgages. what is he doing in that regard? and also, because ofcourse as an investor, the monies has dried upin that area as well. is there something that he'sdoing for investors like myself and of course all of the womenwho are sitting here that are homeowners that would love tosee their mortgages -- and these are people whousually aren't late.

cecilia munoz:right. this is another great question. so this is another area ofhuge need and huge concern. and this is an areayou've been hearing about, the president making his wecan't wait announcements. while we try to work withcongress to get the big stuff done, the big reforms done,we've been scouring to see what administrative tools that wehave in order to make change for people in the meantime.

and he made a we can'twait announcement, this is a couple months agonow, exactly with respect to homeowners who are underwaterwith their mortgages who have not been able to access thehistorically low interest rates that are available toother borrowers right now. so this is an effort, and thiscould help more than a million homeowners who are underwaterwith their mortgages, who need to refinance, and tomake sure that we make available to them the capacity torefinance at those rates.

that saves, as you know, thatis hundreds of dollars a month, sometimes more. to an individual homeowner, thatcan make or break whether or not they're able tostay in their homes, whether or not theyare able to make it, whether or not they are ableto reinvest those resources in their small business. so this is something thatthe administration is doing on our own.

we can do it on a much largerscale with a little help from the congress ofthe united states, but this is an area where we'removing forward and doing as much as we can for people, becausewe know how critical it is. it's certainly criticalfor the economy, but it's criticalfor these families. and really the focus forall of these efforts, for the payroll tax deal thatwe think is going to -- i'm knocking on wood -- is gettingfinalized today that includes an

extension of the payroll taxand unemployment insurance. this is about folks who areworking hard and trying to make ends meet, tryingto do their part, and trying to keephouse and home together. that's been a real focus that'sgoing to continue to be the president's focus this year. and, again, we can'tdo it without you. so thank you foreverything you're doing. and i will turn it back over.

thanks. now we have the chief of staffto the first lady and the former director of the office ofpublic engagement, tina tchen. tina tchen:thanks, heather. and welcome to the white house. good morning. actually, it's wonderfulto see all of you here. i know you've traveled here. and it is great to hear aboutmocha moms being out there and

connecting with allof your members. i will say therewas -- you know, we talked about your being hereat the senior staff meeting this morning, and people were prettyexcited to hear about mocha moms and hear about you being here. so, welcome. i want to echo wherececilia left off, which is reason we're so excitedthat you're here is that we cannot do this all alone.

and one of the big things we'vebeen learning over the course of the last year and a half orso is how little people really understand about whatthe president has done. you know, there's this narrativethat's out there that nothing has happened, and obamacare doesn't help anybody, and we're not doing anythingto help the economy, and yet we've donea tremendous amount. and once people learn aboutthat, then they understand, and then they're supportive.

and so you are so importanton getting that message out, and i really thank youfor taking the time. it's a big chunk of really busylives for all of you to take the time to be here tolearn that detail, and we're reallygrateful for that. and then we are really gratefulfor then what you're going to do on turning around andgetting that message out. the other thing that we'velearned through some of the research that folks have done isactually people don't get a lot

of information anymore fromthe newspapers or from the television network news. they get their informationfrom each other. you know, people are gettingtheir information from you, from the articles you sendthem, not the articles they are picking up on their own,or the blog posts that you are putting up. so your role as messengershere is so important. so i'm going to do acouple things here,

because like many peoplein the white house, none of us does one thing. we all have to dolike multiple things. so in addition to being chiefof staff to the first lady, which i've beenfor the last year, i am also the executive directorof the white house council on women and girls. so i'm going to talk aboutboth of those things. so first, for the first lady,it's just such a treat and a

delight for meeveryday, i have to say, to come in to work in thewhite house, but not just that, to sort of go over to the eastwing and to work with our first lady who is just such aremarkable person and a remarkable leader. our policy director jocelyn fryeis going to be here a little bit later this morning. she's going to tell you morein-depth about let's move, her effort to end childhoodobesity in a generation.

so important to the health ofour children and of ourselves. and she's really passionatein talking about that. i will say that we just cameoff of a three-day, four-state, five-city tour last thursday,friday and saturday. hopefully you saw someof it along the way, promoting the secondanniversary of let's move. and our first ladywill do anything. she will do pushups with ellen. she will do dancing.

she danced on thestage with 14,000 kids in des moines onthursday doing something called the interlude dance. she then did the platypus danceon saturday in florida with disney characters. so she will do anythingto promote the health of our children. so that's so important. so i'll let jocelyn fillyou in more on that.

our second initiative, which ialso hope you've heard about, is joining forces. and joining forces is theinitiative we launched last april together with dr. bidento really support our military families and our veterans. yeah. i mean, these arefamilies -- (applause) absolutely, absolutely. you know, the statisticsare after ten years at war,

you know, really 1% of ourcountry is part of our voluntary force, and they have reallyserved and protected and made the ultimate sacrificesfor the rest of us. and i'm in that rest of us, the99% of us who are not from a military family. and, you know, it really isour obligation, the rest of us, that's a different99%, that's 99%, to support our veteransand our military families. and so often our militaryfamilies don't wear the uniform,

but they are stillenduring nine, ten, 11 deployments of theirmilitary family member. you know, we've got kids whosometimes move 10 times before they graduate high school. and we ran into that yesterdayat the pentagon with the first lady and dr. bidenand secretary panetta, and all of the joint chiefs. everybody was there tounderscore the importance, talking about spousal licensing.

and this is actually somethingi'm going to charge you all to do when you get back home,because it's something everybody can do in every state. what this is is there are aboutone-third of military spouses we now know are in some sortof licensed occupation. they are a teacher. they are a nurse. they are a dental hygienist. a real estate broker.

somebody just mentioned theywere a real estate broker. a lawyer. those are professions thatare licensed state by state. and when these military spouseshave to move with their military service member multiple times-- we had a nurse yesterday who introduced the first lady whotold a story about how at one time when she moved,she just gave up, because it took so muchpaperwork to get her nursing relicensure when she movedfrom one state to another.

and so they are losingmoney in their bank account. the economy is losing out. their kids are losing out. that's somethingevery state can do. we can't do it federally. it's state regulation. but we're callingupon every state. about 11 of themhave already done it. we're calling on all theother, the other 38, 39,

to enact state laws. so in your home state, you know,to laws that will make it easier for military spouses to eitherget a temporary license or have reciprocity. there's lots of differentmodels that can be modeled to fit your state. and if you go tojoiningforces.gov, you'll learn aboutjoining forces, you'll learn about other ways wewant everybody to do what they

can, whether it's go over to amilitary spouse member's house and offer to baby-sit her kids,or take care of the military spouse kids who are in yourschool or in your parish. you know, if you'rean accountant, help them do their taxes. you know, it's as simple assending somebody over to mow their lawn. anything that you can do to helpour military families, you know, we're asking everybody todo what you can to do that.

and it's had tremendous support. i mean, really, it'sjust been so great, and the military familymembers are so grateful, and they are really feeling it,which is something that is very important to the first lady. and then i want to spend sometime talking about with my second hat, so the councilon women and girls. and we formed the council onwomen and girls in march of 2009 by executive order.

it's one of the first executiveorders the president issued. creating a council that isreally all of the federal agencies across the federalgovernment and every major white house office. and when he created it, he didthat instead of creating just one office for women'spolicy in the white house, we did it with this council togo across the entire federal government, because thepresident said then, his charge to the cabinetwas, every part of the federal

government affects womenand girls, some part. whether it's their own employeesor in what they do in their policies and programs. and so every agency as part ofwhat they do every day has to be to think about how are theyaffecting the lives of women and girls. and valerie jarrettis the chair. i am the executive director. valerie is travelingwith the president.

otherwise, she'd be here today. and she conveysher welcome to you. i think it's importantthat valerie is there. because, as you all know, sheis one of his closest advisors, longest friends. the fact that he gave her thisjob means that the voice of women and girls is in the ovaloffice every day with him. it has just been great. so i have to say our federalagencies have stepped up across

the board. so i talk about small business,i know there was a question about small business earlier. you know, we after tenyears of languishing, our administration issuedfinally the women owned small business rule that gives womenowned businesses an equal footing to getfederal contracts. they are discriminated againstin 80 different fields. we've now issued a federal rule.

it took effect in the spring oflast year to give those women owned businesses a leg up. we've expanded the number ofwomen business development centers that the sba owns. so now we have 113 of themaround the country to provide -- another question over here -- toprovide that kind of grassroots on the ground support forwomen owned businesses. valerie two weeks ago we werejust at an urban economic forum in new york where we had 500women entrepreneurs from new

york, not only just comingto hear about what the administration was doing, butto connect with each other. and we did a mentoring sessionfor them so that they could meet people who are venturecapitalists and funders and investors. so we're going to keep doingthat around the country. so that's what we're doingfor women owned businesses. our department oftransportation, i love to talkabout it sometimes,

because who thinks abouttransportation and women's issues, right. but secretary lahoodhas been terrific. one of the first things he didthe first year was to enter into a memorandum withspellman college. oh, there you go! with spellman to createopportunities for young women at spellman to become engineers,because we know that women aren't well represented in thestem field, science technology,

engineering and math. and so they do not only theiracademic work while they are at spellman, but they come and thenthey do summer internships at places like the highwaytransportation safety administration. and then he expandedthat in year two to ten additional schools. i happened to be there atthe event where we penned the memorandum to do that andmet this fabulous spellman,

spellman spellmanrising sophomore. so this young lady, if you thinkabout this, she's 19 years old, she's a rising sophomore. she just finished her stintat highway transportation safety board. she was so excited tobe a highway engineer. this is what shewanted to be at age 19. she was great! so ten more schoolswe're doing that.

the other favorite examplefor the department of transportation, we askedeverybody to think, what do you do in every one ofyour programs that affects women and girls, and thinkabout how to adjust that. and as they did that,they realized -- remember, transportation does thecrash tests for cars, right, for crash worthiness. they realized that in the entire40 year history of that program, they had never used anatomicallycorrect crash test dummies

for women. and they started doing that ayear ago for the first time. and you all know, the seatbelt kind of hits us a little differently, little crashexperience is a little different than for men. and they are now doing. they've now changed that. you know, our military, ithink you probably saw the announcement last week wherewe're expanding the number of

roles that our women inthe military, you know, can serve in. one of them, my other favoriteones is that for the first time in history we now have womengoing on to be officers on submarines in our navy. and this is important, becausesubmariners are to the navy what fighter jet pilotsare to the air force. it's the way to leadership. and because they like to takethe cream of the crop out of the

naval academy, the only way tokeep taking the cream of the crop and putting them onsubmarines was to expand it to women, because the cream of thecrop coming out of the naval academy are women. so it's been great. and then finally, i can't leavethe podium without talking about healthcare, because obviouslythe affordable care act and the passage of healthcare reformis so important for women, for women's health.

you know, women before thepassage of the affordable care act, women and currently nowbecause it's not fully taken effect, women can pay up to120% more in premiums than men, simply because they are women. and it's calledgender discrimination. it's going to be outlawed whenthe affordable care act is fully implemented. important things like makingsure that if you get breast cancer, the practice thatinsurance companies have of

recision, of kicking you offnow that you're sick is barred. they can't kick you offbecause you've gotten sick. they can't refuse to ensureyou because you have a and we have that importantannouncement that you all have probably seen recently in thenews of the expansion of women's prevention health. so, for the first time,for the first time, the affordable care act nowrequires all insurance companies to cover prevention servicesat no additional deductible

or co-pay. that started with kids. we implemented thekids rule last year. so for all your children, yourwell baby care and inoculations, the kinds of things you needfor your kids, are covered. without that -- we expanded itthis last year to take effect later on this summer towomen's prevention health. we've never had a standardfor women's prevention health. the mammograms and pap smearsand gestational diabetes and for

the first time ever screeningfor domestic violence victims so they can get help. those are all requiredto be covered. and the thing that's gotten alittle bit of press lately is contraception. we're including birth control asa required for insurers to cover at no additionalcost to health pay. i mean, we know that 90%, 98% ofamerican women are going to use birth control at some point.

it's not just -- it avoidsunintended pregnancies, but it's key to avoidinglots of other diseases, like ovarian cancer. i was just with the americancollege of obstetrics and gynecologists. they feel so strongly aboutthis as an integral part of women's healthcare. you know, women have to usebirth control for 30 years. i mean, that is -- that isthe span for many women.

it can be as expensive as$600 a year over 30 years. this is a real cost. and we know, you know, there isabout a third of women who need birth control who say theycan't afford it even today. so this is what youknow we are working on. we had an announcementlast week. you know, we have tried tostrike a balance that recognizes the religious beliefs of bothchurches who are accepted and now as the presidentannounced last friday,

you know an accommodationfor religious affiliated organizations likehospitals, and social service organizations, so that theydon't have to use their own money to provide the coveragebut the insurers will. so that we have both womengetting coverage that they need, and religious employers beingable to have the respect for their beliefs thatthey should have. and we think that strikesthe right balance. but i do think that there is arhetoric out there that doesn't

recognize that balance and triesto distort what is going on. so i hope you learn aboutwhat is going on there. and again, message thatout to -- to your members. and so finally, i mean, i thinkthat again just to echo my closing -- my closingremarks what cecelia said, is the theme is, getthat in a word out. learn, take what youwill hear all day-to-day. if you have got questions, ouroffice of public engagement, you know heather and her teamare great at you know let's just

get to them withquestions that we have. if you need more information,go to whitehouse.gov, and get that information. and then re-tweetit out to everybody. and thank you so much for beinghere for everything that you are doing everyday. tina chen:two questions. i think we got two questions. time for two questions.

go ahead. kimberly thomas:good morning, my name is kimberly thomas andi am a member of queens long island chapter. i am also a mommy blogger,valuestreammom.com. i do it all. i also have -- i have somany questions to ask you. but i will just ask one. i have a girls empowermentprogram back in my community.

and i am such a big fan ofmichelle obama and her -- her program. everything that she is doing,because i have two small children. so the let's move works for me. and the white housementoring program, i sort of model some ofit after my own program. for the sake of my girls whodon't know how to navigate life and how to get towhere they want to go,

they are 12 and 13 years old,what was the path that you took to where you are today? tina chen:(laughter) it is hard. so -- and i havea 15 year old too, so i know how hard it is tonavigate our girls through the current -- the currentwaters out there. you know, i -- we were laughingyesterday because we went to a luncheon with the premiere,the vice-president shui who is

visiting, and the woman whowrote the tiger mom book was there. so those of us who are asianchildren, yeah, a couple of us. chris lou, sat next to herand we were riding in the van, and we both said, well,we were all kind of raised by tiger moms. because i said iconfess that i was too. i am not a tiger mom, though. i think i don't have as muchenergy to put -- to put into it.

you know, i try to do theno tv during the week, like the first lady does, andmy daughter calls me everyday at 5:30 and says, allright, homework is down. now, can i watch tv? so you know, for meit was a lot of that. i came from a familywith two girls. so i think that even thoughmy dad is a chinese dad, sort of really washoping for a son, but he put -- he put -- he putall of that into his girls which

i think is what helped. because i had, i carried withhim those hopes and dreams and aspirations he mighthave all put into a boy. he put into me and my sister. and that really lifted us up. and pushed us forward to succeedand gave us the self confidence i think to go through things. and i think that iswhat our girls need. i was a lawyerbefore coming here.

i did -- i was a lawyer atskadden & arps in chicago for 23 years. i passed to the white house,i cannot -- i can't really tell everybody. as i often say, i can't reallytell you how to meet a guy you know with the big ears andthe funny name 20 years ago, and then have himbecome president. i can't quite -- (laughter) -- i can't quite tell youhow to do that to get to the

white house. it was -- that was just alittle bit of fate and faith and blessing happening there. but i do think the ideathat our girls just need to have confidence. we need to give them that selfesteem and that confidence and so they know, you know,as minority women, it used to happen to me asa lawyer all of the time. you walk into the room, i amthe person there to solve

their problem. but you know my male partneris taking me in there, because he is theone who knows them. and i am coming in becausei got a special problem, i was a trial lawyer. and -- but the firsthalf the conversation, it is all going to the guy. i mean, he is the guy that theyare looking to and what -- what we have to realize is to havethe patience to know that

eventually they aregoing to need the help. and so whenever they get through-- they get through describing their problem over here,when they needed the answer, he doesn't know the answer. so -- (laughter) -- right? so they turn and they look,they turn and look to me. and then i have got the answer. and then the whole restof the conversation,

they are talking to me. and, you know, you just, youhave to have the self confidence and the patience to knowthat is going to happen. to know, you stick to yourguns, you do your work. you are patient. you know, and itwill come to you. i mean, i often say that. if you do your work and youare good, it will come to you. you don't have to sort of be outthere kind of making a lot of

noise and nobodyis listening to me. you just -- it will come to you. so i think -- i think that is-- i think that is the message. and one more. in the back there. yup. shenia coleman kirkland:hi, my name is shenia coleman kirkland, and i am the georgiastate coordinator for mocha moms and the generalcouncil for mocha moms,

and i am so excited tobe here from atlanta. i have a question that is kindof piggybacks on the question that the at home director,network director asked, many of us in this room havekind of taken an alternative career path. my background is thati am an attorney. and many people have decided towork either eliminate their time in the work force or workpart-time, flex time, those types of things.

and i am wondering you know aseconomic realities have made it so that many women have toget back in the work force, including many of our members,and i am wondering what if anything the administration isdoing to encourage businesses to look to part-time,telecommuting, flex time? tina tchen:yup. shenia coleman kirkland:in particular to findbalance for their families. well, i am glad you asked that,because it is one of the things that i should have mentionedand i left off my list.

it is a big issue for us. the first lady and the presidenthave both talked about it, because it is somethingthey both live. they were both working parentswith young children throughout their entire careers. you probably heard the story,first lady often tells the story of going to her job interviewat the university of chicago medical center having to takesasha in the baby carrier with her to the job interview.

and so she knows it. so we in fact in this veryroom in march of 2010, held the first ever whitehouse conference on workplace flexibility. and both the president andthe first lady spoke at it. we issued a report that isstill being cited from -- by our president's council of economicadvisers that laid out the business case and there isa positive business case. the businesses that haveflexible work arrangements that

allow for part-time,that allow for time off, allow people to sort of on rampsand off ramps for the careers, have a better bottom line. they have lower turn-over,they have a more productive work force. they have lower absenteeism. those are all things thatcontribute to the bottom line and are really critical. i have done and spokenabout this globally.

you know, othercountries are doing it. so to maintain our globaleconomic competitiveness, this is something thatwe need to address. so what we have been doing, welaunched that in march of 2010. our women's bureau from thedepartment of labor then had ten other sessions likethat around the country. they have got a report thatthey are pulling together on best practices. we have been trying to implementbest practices in the federal

government as a --be a model employer. so we have enacted a tele-work,the tele-work act that did get enacted, and that we have beenimplementing to try to get tele-work and other flexiblearrangements implemented through the federal bureaucracy. one of the things which is alsotry to work with dod because like yesterday's announcement,because they know. they have got a lotof working spouses. in the military as well.

and to develop flexiblearrangements for that. it is a challenge. we would love to sort of hearmore input from all of you about what's working, andwhat is not working, what can we do in thefederal government to help. it is a little challenge in thecurrent statutory environment, the regulatory environment,because it is hard to get new regulatory pieces put through. so what we are trying to do islead by example and also work

with all of the coalitions onworkplace flexibility that are out there to kind of lift thisup and make sure people get the word out. the -- the -- the economicreport to the president by the cea will come out. it is either coming out thisweek or it is about to come out. it is a big, thick report on theoverall state of the economy to the president. but i will give our new chairmanalan krueger a lot of credit.

he has a special box, look inchapter six when it comes out, on over all economic trends. and he has got a special boxwhere he highlights this very issue of workplace flexibilityas one of the trends that is important to pay attention toas we build our economy of the future. so it is something that weare very, very interested in. so thank you forasking about that. so thank you all.

heather foster:so let's just thank tina again, because those weregreat remarks. i know you were excitedto hear from her. okay. so it has been a busy morning,and there is always things going on. just like tina mentioned. all of us are juggling aboutthree to four things each day, and sometimes each hour.

so we are really excited thatwe have had so many speakers. so we are going haveanother panel now. and so not just all women today,but now i am going to introduce you to my colleague,kevin lewis, who is our director ofafrican american media and special projects. kevin is going to helpmoderate this next panel. and we have some speakers fromthe department of education. tyra mariani.

and from the environmentalprotection agency, i see you in theback, stephanie. ms. stephanie owens. and they are both going tohighlight issues on education and the environment. and so once again, we'lldo the same as before, they will give about fiveminutes of remarks and then we'll take question and answer. stephanie owens:good morning, ladies.

audience members:good morning. stephanie owens:you guys look so beautiful. it is just so awesome tolook out and see all of these beautiful faces. i want to start by thankingyou for being here and for congratulating you on being thenew face of an environmentalist. i am stephanie owens. i am from the environmentalprotection agency and you are going to hear from ouradministrator in just a

so i am going to keepmy remarks very short. i focus on publicengagement at epa. and my role is to expand theenvironmental conversation. to have more people at the tabletalking about these issues. i am -- you have heardabout our agency, right? job killing, epa. no, not so much. that is not who we are andthat is not what we do. we protect human healthand the environment.

indulge me. i would like for you to reachin your purse and grab oh, i don't know, somethingthat you can read. maybe some handlotion, lip gloss, just any -- anything that has alist of ingredients on the back of it. does anyone have an ingredientsay the second or third that has more than 2 syllables? anybody want to mentionwhat that ingredient is?

audience member:(inaudible). stephanie owens:absolutely. and what does that do? that is exactly my point. and so one of the things thatour agency does is we work on chemical safety. we actually research thechemicals that go into the products that are used, theproducts that are used to produce food, the productsthat are used in your

cleaning ingredients. and for the first time, in 2010,administrator jackson put a database of over 83,000chemicals on the website, so that should you decide youwant to know what it is you are putting on yourface -- (laughter) -- i am not preaching. just teaching. should you decideyou want to know, you can actually go on thatdatabase and look it up and see

how it impacts you. there is a lot of conversationabout the work that we do. the regulations that we putforward and we have done some amazing work and theadministrator is going to talk a little bit about thatwhen she gets here. but at the same time, it isreally important for us to begin to provide more education,at a community based level. i don't mean communityas in your neighborhood. i mean community asin the place you are.

where it matters to you. so that you know whatis in that lip gloss, so that you know what is in thatdetergent that you are using. so that you know what it isyou are putting on your table. so that when yourchild drops something, and picks it up and putsit in his or her mouth, then you know exactlywhat is going on with that particular chemical. one of the other areasthat i focus on is

environmental education. and i have to really applaudquay and the work that she has done and the way that yourorganization has come together -- behind her leadership. your support of our release ofthe mercury air and air toxics rule was absolutely phenomenal. you had people talking aboutan epa regulation that don't normally have this conversation. usually, it is polarized.

so you have some folks over hereand it is all about the earth and polar bears andconversations that folks don't necessarily normally have. and then you have business andindustry over here saying it doesn't work. and then in the middle,you have everyone else. and this is the kind ofconversation that we want to begin to have so thatpeople understand how these environmental rules effect themin their own individual areas.

so i am going to stop nowbecause i want to spend more time answering your questions. and just once again, it is anawesome view from where i sit, so thank you. tyra mariani:good morning. my name is tyra mariani. i would like to echo thesentiments of stephanie. it is both an honor and aprivilege to sit before you to see a room full of women ofcolor at the white house is a

pretty amazing thing. and i have to say, i amlike a little bit nervous, just because i am so honored tobe in your presence as peers. really, i do mean that. i am the deputy chief of staffto secretary arne duncan here at the white house. and as you know, president obamahas made education a major, major focus forhis administration. when other agencies are seeingcuts, president obama is always,

always making education apriority and putting more money into education rather thanless or even the status quo. i wanted to both highlightsome of the things that we have worked on over the last two tothree years as well as just to give you a sense of some of thethings that we are looking for and what the prioritiesare going forward. of course, we had the americanrecovery and reinvestment act which saved over, i think wehad over 325,000 teaching jobs, pell grant, and new reformprograms that were funded.

we also made a majorinvestment in early learning. we just had what was called therace to the top early learning challenge fund. as you know probablybetter than i, the variability in earlylearning, you know, particularly from birth,to pre-k is just all over the place. it is anything fromright babysitting, to true childrenlearning languages,

and things of that sort. so with the earlylearning challenge, we really wanted to challengestates to pick up the mantra of adopting standards and thinkingabout high quality early learning programs, so thatchildren are prepared to enter kindergarten and beyond. so that was also anothermajor investment. we also have tried to supportmeaningful change at the state level, so, one, you may haveheard of the race to the top

which focuses onstandards and assessments. prior to what we call collegeand career ready standards curriculum, state standardswere all over the map. and so parents thought thattheir children were doing well, because maybe the standardswere dumbed down and they actually weren't. but through these incentivesthat we have provided, we have 46 states that haveadopted college and career ready standards.

and they are beginning towork with the new generation of assessments. so whether you're home schoolingor you have children in public schools, i really encourage youto approach your schools and districts and find outwhere they are in adopting these standards. and are they being implemented? are they starting to thinkabout preparing teachers and are teachers starting touse these standards?

and just so you know,these standards are internationally benchmarked. so when -- when kids startlearning according to these standards, we knowthat they will be internationally competitive. which is a great move. we are also focusingon turn around. so our bottom five percent ofschools which represent over a thousand schoolsacross the country,

we call them drop out factories. when it comes to highschools in particular, the president has made it apriority through the school improvement grant that we focuson turning around these low performing schools, so itrequires introduction of new staff including principalsand teachers, new curriculum, and also thinking aboutadding learning time, because we know that our kids,sometimes the six hours isn't enough.

and it can be throughenrichment and other programs, but we want to make sure thatour kids have what they need to go forward. we are also trying tomake college count, so this isn't a k to 12 agenda,but we also have really focused on pell grants and making surethat post secondary students have access to pell grants. so since 2009, i am happy tosay that pell grants are up by 50 percent.

so instead of 6 millionstudents having pell grants, we now have 9 million studentsthat have access to pell grants. and then also the percentage ofyoung adults with post secondary degrees is up 2percent to 42 percent, which is not nearly enough whenyou consider the president's goal of us becoming the leadingnation in terms of producing high -- post secondarygraduates, but it is a start. and the other thing that wehave been focused on is really transparency.

and helping parents and studentsmake informed decisions around what does college really cost? what am i going to learn? and what kind of jobs arethe graduates of these colleges getting? and so we have really beenpushing a transparency agenda thinking about a score cardthat is -- an easy to read score card, that allows parents andstudents to understand what value they are getting for thecolleges that they are going to.

going forward, the -- we arecontinuing to focus on college costs both continuing thatfederal support that i talked about through pell grantsbut then also state reforms. so we are really pushing statesand colleges to think about making college affordable andof value, of a high quality. and then we are also focused onfreezing the subsidized student loan interest rate. it is currently at 3.4 percent. it is supposed to double laterthis year to 6.8 percent.

so you can imagine that issomething that we want to fight, fight against in theeconomic times that we face. and we are also reallyfocused on teachers. so we realize that ourteachers are nation builders. they are perhaps one of themost important professions. and, you know, we realize todaythat the role is so important, yet teachers don't feelrespected in the way that we think about the profession. you know we want to negotiate15 -- 15 minutes in every given

day, but we realize thatteachers are professionals, that they work way longer thanthe -- than the eight hours than the contract may say. and so the presidenthas called for, he is actually proposing $5billion in the fy13 budget that really encourages statesand districts to think about transforming the profession. and so this includes anythingfrom not only thinking about paying teachers more and soyou should -- it should be a

competitive wage that studentsgraduating from college consider teaching along with engineeringand accounting and every other profession that is out there. so he is calling for an increasein compensation -- (applause) -- but then also that theschool place that we consider collaboration, that teachershave career pathways, so you shouldn't have to leavethe classroom in order to make more money. but you should haveother, you know,

ladders and roles alongthe way that allow you to stay in the classroom. we realize that great principalsare equally important, so we want to make sure that weare investing in the preparation of our teachersand our principals. and so these are one of thereforms which is really focused on the teachingprofession as a whole. how do we transform it? we look at a silver bullet.

we want to look atevaluations systems, but it is so muchbigger than that. and we realize that. so we are calling for $5 billionto in-cent states and districts that really move towardsthinking about transforming the teaching profession. and then finally, theother priority is jobs. aligning job training andeducation programs with work force demand.

the president has called for $8billion in mandatory funding for community collegeto career fund. and if you saw the stateof the union address, you may remember him mentioningthe need to really align what we are preparing adults to do andthe skills that are needed in the economy. and so he is proposing for $8million for community colleges to really work with businessesin the community to align that -- that need that is happening.

and the final thing i willsay before we open it up for questions is that wecan't do anything without parent engagement. it is one thing for thisto come from washington, and we are going to continue topush for what we think is the right thing. but if we don't have parentsdemanding a better education, better schools, right, betterdistricts -- (applause) -- we are just notgoing to get there.

and so we both want the voiceto come from the ground to make it better. but then we also want to dowhat we can to help parents be informed decision makers infiguring out what the best schools are for their kids. so as someone said earlier,we can't do it without you. but what -- i think yourpresence here says a lot around parent engagement andeducation as a whole. so that is all i will sayand then i will open it up.

kevin lewis:perfect. thank you so much. i am going to moderateand help out here. welcome, everyone. we are going to startwith a question. who is going to get it? i have a waving hand. in the middle. here we go.

waving hand. anna daschel charles:thank you. kevin lewis:please say your name, chapter -- anna daschel charles:good morning. good afternoon. my name is anna daschel charles. i am from johns creek, georgia. and i am representing the northfulton, georgia mocha moms. but most important i just wantto say i am so thankful and

blessed to be here today. i am a mom of three boys and myboys are so sharp, straight a's, advanced levels. their ages are six, nine and 11. i live in one of the mostaffluent school districts in georgia. however, as far asdiversity is concerned, this is coming toward education. in our neighborhood,and in our school,

although my children are doingextremely well and they are even advanced, i find that we stillhave a challenge and feeling like i am keeping up. and my -- our school ispredominantly children from china, they are firstgeneration here. but from china. children from japan andeven children from india. and i find that these childrenare entering kindergarten. my little guy is in firstgrade, but even in kindergarten,

they are entering maybespeaking two or three languages. tyra mariani:yes. anna daschel charles:so you see, whichi love my children, but they do not speaktwo or three languages. so you said somethingthat piqued my interest. you said that you haveinternational benchmarks that you are enforcing. where can i find moreinformation out about that? can you share morebecause i need to know.

tyra mariani:so the as i mentionedthat 46 states have adopted college andcareer ready standards. don't ask me which state. i can't remember off the top. i think it's texas was theone that wasn't adopted. but any way, 46. the good news is haveadopted these college and career ready standards. and the standards areinternationally benchmarked,

meaning if children are learningaccording to these standards, we know that we will beinternationally competitive as a country. if you -- if you google what iscalled, common core standards, that will tell you exactlywhich states are a part, that have adoptedthese standards. and then you should inquirewithin your particular district or school where they are interms of adopting the standards. so that is the gist of it.

and then there are alsotwo consortium that have been developed. states are in usually one ofthe two that are also working to rethink the assessment sothat students are prepared. you know, we know that today'sassessments aren't of high quality and aren't measuringimportant skills like critical thinking. and so we have two assessmentconsortiums that have been formed to align to thecommon core curriculum.

that is more competitive. so again, googlecommon core standards, and you can also get a sense --they actually have the standards on line. so if you want to look at whatstudents should be learning in language arts andmath by grade level, the standards areavailable for you to see. and then again, you can check,it really varies by district and by school in terms of theirplan for implementation.

but you definitely, againthat parent engagement piece, you want to push. where are you guys inadopting these standards? are my kids learning? when can i expect them toadjust to these new standards? kevin lewis:okay. so we are going to takean epa question now. there we go. tasha fuller:my name is tasha fuller.

i am with the (inaudible)of mocha moms. hi, ladies. audience members:hi. tasha fuller:my question is anenvironmental question. i have a very green child. i don't know wherei got her from. and we are all into theenvironment and recycling. and one thing that i havenoticed and it is an education and epa question, is thatwhen you go to the schools to

volunteer, theyare not recycling. tasha fuller:they are not teaching sustainability, they are not composting, theyare not doing any of the things that we need to do in order tomake our world a better place and a greener place. and i have also noticedon another end, you know, we just happen to be fortunatewhen you are a stay at home, you have a couple ofopportunities available to you. but when we travel to otherareas and visit our families,

our neighborhoods don't looklike their neighborhood. stephanie owens:right. tasha fuller:they don't have the same resources going in to their neighborhoods toactually keep it clean. and i'm wondering why that is. i mean, we're all paying taxes. we're all, you know, living inamerica and i should never go to another neighborhood or have totake my child to my grandmother -- their grandmother's house andsee trash all over the street.

i mean, what's up with that? kevin lewis:what's up with that. stephanie owens:yeah,what's up with that. kevin lewis:thank you. thank you for your question. stephanie owens:first of all, i'm excited about the questionabout the schools because you're absolutely correct. and last year administratorjackson and secretary duncan

created an initiative. it's called greenribbon schools. so that initiative actuallyfocuses on bringing more environmental information in tothe schools in a voluntary way because the teachers are verybusy and you can talk to this, teaching to test, and theirbudgets are cut tremendously. and someone mentioned earlierthat even things like recess, where children don't havean opportunity to do that. so there's a limited amount oftime that the teachers feel as

though they have and it's thelimited amount of money that the administrators of thoseschools feel that they have. but through this initiative, epaand the department of education are working together to identifyschools across the nation that are -- will then be given greenribbons as these green ribbon schools and hopefully that willbecome a model for a very easy and voluntary way to incorporatesome of these green activities into the school setting. on the inequality of communitymaintenance and solid waste,

is basically the questionthat you're asking about, so the federal government, weset up federal regulations and we provide funding to stateswho then provide funding to counties, who thenprovide funding to cities, and it's that flow that oftencauses the disconnect in terms of what actually happens fromone community to another. so the federal policy, ourfederal policy on solid waste is the same in all of the states,but what states are funded in which ways and how that movesdown to actual local government

and what they're able to do,that's all a local decision. so these kinds of conversationsare the kinds of conversations that you would have with yourlocal municipalities about the issue that you're raising. but from a federal level theregulations are all the same; it's just how they'reimplemented at the local level that's always different. did you want to add to that? let's we're going to switchback over to education.

tyra mariani:she set it off. kevin lewis:okay, waving your hand all the way in the back. cree davis:hello, my name is cree davis, i'm one of the presidents ofatlanta south fulton chapter. and i want to say thankyou for recognizing that mocha moms is a powerfulgrassroots organization. mocha moms is a verystrong organization. but i have a plea.

i have a nonprofit organizationthat is another one big sis lil sis, inc., and one of the thingsthat we incorporated is help with breast feeding. you know, we've heardtoday about health care. education. but all of that really starts asfrom a baby with breast feeding which in our community, some of,i'm pretty sure most of us in here have breast fed becausewe have that educational level, but i'm standing here forthe girls that are in my

organization who don'thave that chance. and my organizationis their chance. we teach them how to breastfeed literally with our hands. is there a way we canuse media, commercials, the way that mcdonald's,mcdonald's pushes burgers and fries -- (laughter) -- on our community, can weuse that same effort and push breast feeding? can we use that same effort andpush how important education is

in a fun commercialto the kids, you know, that are in ourcommunities, urban, some of the rough urbancommunities that where the children are sitting therewatching tv all day because mom is at work, they can be-- thiscan feed into them as well. and the more they see itthe more their minds will be renewed. so is there a waywe can do that? is there a way you all can usemore of the media as far as

commercials to push some ofthese things to our children in the rough urban neighborhoods? stephanie owens:the answer is yes andonly because i still see her sitting here, i'm goingto punt back to -- (laughter) -- because really it's veryappropriate for dr. nadine to speak to how, with her work atthe department of health and human services and especiallyher work with disparities, and i'll just tell youhhs does amazing psas. the cdc does amazing psas.

and so i absolutely think thatthere is an engagement activity that could happen. and i think that that's sortof square in your area, doctor. dr. nadine gracia:and so, yes, i mean, i think the influence and theuse of social media is amazing, social media, mainstreammedia for us to get these messages across. we have actually a programcalled "text for baby" because you know about the use ofthe cell phones, for example,

i use the cell phones and thisis a free service actually where you can get text messagessent to your phone if you are pregnant. so actually it will tell you inthe course for your pregnancy, okay, it's time for this test soyou should be going to see your obstetrician -- (cross-talk) audience member:so how do you hear about that? dr. nadine gracia:i'm telling you right now. audience members:so doctor's orders for today.

dr. nadine gracia:you can go to women'shealth.gov or you can actually just go to "text forbaby" you'll find it but our women's health.gov -- someone ishelping me get this information -- and it continues actuallyafter you've had the baby as well so that you know it'stime for the two-month checkup, it's time for the baby toget these vaccines and the four-month check-up. this is a great tool becausewe know the high usage rate of text messaging.

these are some of the innovativeways that we are trying to get health messages out therebesides just expecting that you're just going to get back inthe doctor's office by going and have routine care. but we're also, we'retweeting, we're blogging. the surgeon generalis doing this as well. so there are those mechanismsif you go to my office's website which is again google officeof minority health or it's minorityhealth@hhs.gov.

if you can't remember all ofthat just google office of minority health@hhs. you can sign up for many ofthese things to get information but certainly "text for baby"if you haven't heard about it please spread the news. audience member:i just wanted to addthat "text for baby" has already reached outto us so it's in the works. stephanie owens:wow! great.

okay, i feel sobad, i feel so bad. so i was just looking attwitter and john carson, who is our director of theoffice of public engagement, he tweeted, "hey, i'mcoming down to speak to the mocha moms." so he's here. i definitely encourage youall to tweet if you have, i saw you haveabout three, over 3, 000 followers so for thefolks who aren't here you can,

you know, start to dialogue. i'm going to call up johncarson right now so you can -- john carson:good morning! audience members:good morning! john carson:how's it going so far? audience members:great. john carson:had some great people come by? learned a lot. well, look, i am just here to,first, as many others have said,

to say welcome tothe white house. (whoooo!) but they sent me up herewith an "ask" of all of you. but it's an ask that i know thisis a crowd that is very good at and that is tell your story ofwhat you experienced here today. what you learned here today. what you learnedfrom each other. what you learned fromadministration officials. you know, it's very fitting thati'm making this ask after the

exchange that just happenedbecause here's what i have to tell you. i work on public engagement. my job wakes me up in the middleof the night as to how we can make sure more people understandhow the federal government can be a partner with them,with their organization, with their community. and here's what i have learned. the new york times is wonderful.

the washington post runs adecent story now and then. but i tell you what, the number1 way that people find out what is going on in this country,they find out how the federal government has somethingthat can help them, is one-on-one conversations. it's that blog posting. look, i know the power ofwhat mocha moms can do. my wife and i, wherever we'vemoved we're on the local mommy blog we follow and that's how,and, you know, we're busy,

when some pediatrician thatwe've never met on that list serve says you really shouldn'tbe using this formula, you should use thatone, we just go with it. that's how-- (laughter) the affordable care act, right? you've talked aboutit this morning. here's what i wantyou to understand. the number 1 way that peoplehave found out how it can help them, that websitethey can go to,

is not some new york timesor milwaukee journal sentinel article about the politicsof the affordable care act; it is one mom sitting next toanother at a basketball game saying i just got my22-year-old on my insurance, have you done it yet? these are not extra things. tweeting is not some niceside thing that happens. this is the number 1 wayinformation moves today. so my simple ask is talkabout what you liked here.

talk about what you didn't like. talk about theinformation you learned. but for two different reasons. first is for the informationthat you will share. the collective power, thecollective networks of this incredible group of communityleaders will reach more people than the president's trip tomilwaukee, wisconsin yesterday. but there's a second reason thati ask you all to be so vocal tweeting, writing, blogging,pull someone aside at the

grocery story tomorrow, is thatwhat we need in this country right now is more peopleunderstanding and believing that we can make our countrybetter and stronger. more people believing thatthey can be a part of it. and when they see that acommunity leader like you that they know, that they'reon your e-mail list, that they've seen you at work,when they see that you were at the white house, you were apart of making change happen, they're going to believe thatthey can be a part of it, too.

so be vocal. tweet me. i am at johncarson44. we're going to be doing atwitter session with a number of you later this afternoon. i look forward to it. and thank you so much forwhat you're doing every day. and back to kevin. and we have another guest.

okay, so we're going to takeabout a couple more questions. before we continue, since thereare so many great -- i see all the hands shaking -- i justwant to -- can you take the opportunity just to share yourcontact information so if any of the mocha moms have questionsfor you they can reach out to you directly. stephanie owens:sure. it's owens, o-w-e-n-s. owens, o-w-e-n-s.stephanie,s-t-e-p-h-a-n-i-e, @epa.gov.

tyra mariani:and i'm not a tweeter. but you can have my e-mailaddress which is tyra.mariani. if you -- i'll spell it for youbut if you have it on the agenda it's t-y-r-a.m-a-r-i-a-n-i@ e-d as in ed.gov. so tyra mariani@ --tyra.mariani@ed.gov. kevin lewis:okay, so we're going totake one more question. okay? time for two more questions? so we have two more questions.

see the words voluntary,collective -- (cross-talk) how could i say no? she's shaking her hand. akilah jefferson:i'm akilah jefferson, co-president for southern princegeorge's county chapter of the mocha moms. audience:whooooo! kevin lewis:welcome. akilah jefferson:and i so, so, sovalue education.

i'm actually an instructor at alocal community college that's going workforcedevelopment, so helping, and i'm over in southeast,d.c., helping people, you know, learn a craft, learn askill, get back out there. my question to you involves howthe administration addresses the individual needsof our students. so as opposed to, youknow, we kind of, you know, over the years have done itbecause we've done it that way have a factorymodel of education,

how are we addressingthose individual needs, supporting specialtyprograms in, you know, mandarin immersion schools andthings like that within our public school system? so that's my question. tyra mariani:that was a great question. i so absolutely agree with youand i talked about the need to transform the teachingprofession, it's because we, you know, you said earlierwhen i walked in that we're not

preparing our kids for the kindof jobs that we were prepared for; it requires a differentkind of preparation. it's really a local decision interms of what kinds of schools and so we certainly arepromoting states and districts to create a different portfolioof schools whether that -- and that's not necessarily charteror traditional school but that is the mandarinimmersion program, that's career academiesthat's, you know, really, places with really smallclass sizes or maybe students

with disabilities. and part of this standard issaying in developing the common core curriculum, which wedidn't do, states have done, is to define what we thinkstudents need to know and be able to do. and so our funding, whether it'sthrough "race to the top" or school improvement grantshave really pushed states and districts to come together interms of deciding what students need to know and be able to dobut allow teachers to decide

along with parent engagementwhat's necessary for those students. one of the things that we'rereally encouraging and have put out is the technology plan tosay we realize that student learning is individualized andtechnology is a great enabler when you're in a classroom of20 kids or 30 kids or more, that you can really leveragetechnology to look at individualized student needs. and we're also supportingcollaboration with teachers

because we think that it'sthrough teachers talking about students that you canunderstand student needs. if you just put that teacheralone in the classroom and you don't give him or her time totalk to other teachers about johnny is really strugglingwith this or, you know, sarah is really acting out,i don't know what's going on, and that, through thatcollaboration you can sort of figure out what thestudent needs are. so i'd say that our incentivesand even our esca flexibility so

"no child left behind" reallystrict at mandating and punishing schools but allowingstates to come up with accountability systems that lookat different needs of students and how they're performing,including subgroups so that they can meet those needsat the local level. shelley english figaro:i'm shelley english figaro and i am one of the foundersof this organization. this is one of the proudestmoments in my life. and this is a dream come true.

thank you, very much, for this. i have a question. the little boy whowas four years old, my son who was four when wefounded this organization, is now a man, he's in college,that's how long we've been doing this. i'd like to know whatexplanation have the colleges given you in terms of theirjustification for their prices. we just went through thecollege admission process,

he's a freshman now,and the average college is $52,000 a year. we really ended upbasing our decision, in terms of where to send him,on pure finances because we simply couldn't afford to sendhim to some of the colleges that he got into because theywere 52, 53, $54,000 a year. and many mochas don't havechildren as old as i do -- -- but i want to know whathave the colleges told you? what information?

and what really can be done? tyra mariani:so part of the issue has been state aid to colleges. and that is with the economytaking the hit the way it has, state budgets have decreasedwhat they have given to those colleges and universities and socolleges and universities have then passed thatcost on to students. and so we've really focusedthrough the pell grants trying to give more aid.

but that's not enoughbecause then they, you know, you're almost sort of, i don'twant to say contributing to the problem, but you're helpingstudents to pay for, students and parents to pay for,but it doesn't help if the cost keeps going up. and so a really major push,particularly over the last several weeks and goingforward, is offering, you know, thinking about a competition,thinking about the aid that we give to states so that they canstart to think about how to make

college more affordable andreally incenting and giving tuition and scholarships toplaces that are giving a real value to your point of, like,i've got to make a decision and they are tradeoffs. i would say, but toanswer your question, the primary reason has beenaround reducing state aid to colleges and universities andhaving to pass that cost on. but i think relatedly collegesand universities really have to start thinking about howthey do things differently.

and so personalizing learningat the college level is also equally important in thinkingabout online learning and other ways of getting thatinformation out. and so i'd say one of thecurrent pushes that the administration is really makingcolleges and universities rethink how they deliver whatthey're teaching and delivering it so that it's avalue to schools. kevin lewis:all right. and i know this is goingto be a lightning rod,

i feel so bad on that side, ihave to do it -- on this side, i'm sorry, sorry, so the lastquestion for real this side. audience members:ooh! shoshana biknear:my name is shoshana biknear and i represent the essexcounty chapter in new jersey. so i actually come on acouple of different fronts. i come as a mocha mom but i cometo you all asking questions both as a teacher and as amother and as a parent. "no child left behind" is ahallmark of the bush era and it

was the first of its kind toestablish benchmarks for schools to hold teachers andadministrators accountable to promote achievementfor all students. so i love that. so for everything that'sbeen said about it, i really appreciate that thereis being ratification to it to make it better. just before i get intothe next part i want to big up for obama --

-- for being a part of thepublic service loan forgiveness. i just want to say if youdon't know about that, you need to know,it allows teachers, child care providers and otherservice individuals to stay in the professions. and for somebody whocame out of college having $50,000 in student loans,i am only two years away from having forgiveness. (crying)

but i unfortunately comebroken-hearted knowing that the policy needs to be ratifi--amended in terms of "no child left behind" because i amnow back working in newark, new jersey, working asa literacy specialist. and i firsthand witness the painand humiliation of a 5th grade student who is not able to read. i want to know what fundsare being allocated for early intervention programsto put educated, dedicated professionals infront of our kids at the early

childhood education level tominimize special education budgets that comelater down the road. and you talked about "race tothe top" which is largely based on test scores and i'm hererepresenting all of you knowing that the gap starts long beforeour kids ever take a test. what is being done to hold ourcommunities accountable for our children, not just theparents and the teachers. and in terms of like with,i know you said a lot, you said something briefly aboutthe early learning challenge and

i want to know where to get moreinfo for that because now that i'm back in the classroom andi'm working with teachers who are absolutelydedicated to these kids, there's so many teachers outthere that are trying to stay in this profession. i could have gone on to be a lotof other things but i believe in our kids. i believe in my kids. i believe in your kids.

i didn't come throughschool going to the best private schools. i went to schools at some ofthe worst public schools but i turned out here inthe white house. so -- (applause) -- our public schools work. even though many of us areaffluent and we have the opportunity, advocate even ifthe children are in private schools, advocate forthe public schools.

heather foster:so, thank you, very much. that was, i mean, i think wehave to say that we're all inspired by the factthat you sat there, you've listened to everythingthat the speakers said. you realized how it related toyour life and that's what makes everybody here in this roomwork as hard as we do every day. and understandthat that message, that passion that you have, thetears that you are shedding, our president understands that,and that's why he employs us to

work as hard as we can to makesure that you have programs like the public loanforgiveness program. so just know that. just know that. and so, you know, i have thepleasure of working with michael strautmanis and a lot of timespeople here in d.c., they know, they call him straut -- michael strautmanis:wait, you're notgoing to do this. i thought i was going to come --

heather foster:yes. michael strautmanis:well, first of all, we'll get you answers toyour questions so you get the information that youneed so we will do that. sorry, i knew you weregoing to do that anyway. we'll get it. i can't stand herewhile you do that. heather foster:he's just going to drop by to say some few words.

he heard you ladies werein the building today. he's actually on travel butwanted to stop in and say some brief words. but you are, youknow, passionate, and i just have to addressit and say thank you. so we're going to make surestraut does answer your question but we're going to allow him togive some brief remarks so he can be on his way. michael strautmanis:i am, so these folks,

they work for me so they haveto let me come and speak. so i'm going to interruptbriefly because i wanted to come by and say a couple of things. so my name is mike strautmanis. it's great to seeeverybody here. how you doin'? audience members:fine. michael strautmanis:i wanted to say a few things that i want you all to know.

valerie jared and the presidentare on the west coast, but they would want me tosay the following: number 1, we cry a lot around here. we do. because it's atough time -- see, i'm getting choked up right now-- and my team who works for me know that i'm a big crier. but it's because we care. and it's because we're -- ouremotions and why we get up every

single day arewrapped up in this. the other thing i wanted to say,particularly specifically just for the mocha moms isthat, you know, we see you. you know, i -- my mentorand the first person really professionally who looked outfor me was michelle obama, the first lady ofthe united states. i work for valerie jared,she's my boss, and i see her, we meet three timesa day, we e-mail 150, she's is on that e-mail jag.

and, you know, between my momand my wife and my daughter, these amazing sisters that wehave here who are incredible, who are doing exactly whatyou're doing but just in a different setting, who arejuggling exactly what you're trying to juggle to manage theirparents and their families and their communities andtheir professions, and their childrenand everything else. i guess i just want you to knowthat what you're doing and the way you're doing it just that'sthe way it's supposed to be.

don't let people make you feellike you need to change somehow how you're doing what you'redoing in order to fit in to some notion about what is success andwhat this country is supposed to be about. if there is nothing else youshould take away from this, know that the way youoperate, the way you roll, is happening at the highestlevels of the united states of america. the president istrying to, you know,

do his job and bea good husband. and be a good father. and take care of his health. his wife is doingthe same thing, but as i said about fredastaire and ginger rogers, on heels backwards. and so, and that ethic and thatfaith and that determination to do everything rightthe way you all do, looking at you ithink about my wife,

her determination to doeverything right and have everything happen atthe highest standard, that's how they gotto where they are. nobody gave them anything. nobody gave you anything. so as we continueto do this work, as we try to accomplish whatneeds to be accomplished in order to make sure that we havean economy that's built to last, that has opportunityfor everyone,

just know that we'regoing to need you, not as supporters -- yes, we'regoing to need you as supporters -- but we're going toneed you as guides. we're going to needyou as inspirations. we're going to need you asinnovators who can show us the way things are going to workwell in the community so that we can do the same thing andhave that reflected here. so this is a real partnership;that's why we did this. it's not to start something.

but to reflect what is. and to reflect whathas already happened. and to affirm you and to affirmus because this is why we do what we do. so i just want to thank you forthe spirit and energy that you brought into us. this place was beencrackling all day. i saw some of y'all coming in asi was going into work today -- -- and you all were cracklin'on 17th street and pennsylvania

avenue, talking to each otherand i'm gonna tell them this and i'm gonna say that and, youknow, we're going to do this. and you all have so muchenergy around governing, right? around education. and around an economy. and around health care. and around our environment. around what's real. so, yes, you know, j and b, theyhad their baby and i know that's

important and wegotta talk about it. and we lost whitney and that wasa tragedy and i know we want to talk about that. and what our children arewearing when they're in school and all that stuff, you know,yes, i want to talk about that. but i want to talkabout this, too. michael strautmanis:thanks a lot, everybody.