Arne Duncan Quotes

I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina.

Even in a time of fiscal austerity, education is more than just an expense.

Borrowing to pay for college used to be the exception; now it's the rule.

I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. And if you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice.

It's fascinating to me that some of the pushback is coming from sort of white suburban moms who, all of a sudden, their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, their schools aren't quite as good as they thought they were. And that's pretty scary.

Wherever you find something extraordinary, you’ll find the fingerprints of a great teacher.

The factory model of education is the wrong model for the 21st century. Today, our schools must prepare all students for college and careers-and do far more to personalize instruction and employ the smart use of technology.

At a time when going to college has never been more important, it's never been more expensive, and our nation's families haven't been in this kind of financial duress since the great depression. And so what we have is just sort of a miraculous opportunity simply by stopping the subsidy to banks when we already have the risk of loans. We can plow those savings into our students. And we can make college dramatically more affordable, tens of billions of dollars over the next decade.

Research shows that children do better in school and are less likely to drop out when fathers are involved. Engaged parents can strengthen communities, mentor and tutor students, and demonstrate through their actions how much they value their children's education.

In America, your zip code or your socioeconomic status should never determine the quality of your education.

The arts significantly boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds students will go on to graduate from college. As First Lady Michelle Obama sums up, both she and the President believe 'strongly that arts education is essential for building innovative thinkers who will be our nation's leaders for tomorrow.'

We've seen more reform in the last year than we've seen in decades, and we haven't spent a dime yet. It's staggering how the Recovery Act is driving change.

Teachers support evaluations based on multiple measures: student growth, classroom observation and feedback from peers and parents.

To be clear, we the Department of Education want curriculum to be driven by the local level. We are by law prohibited from directing curriculum. We don't have a curriculum department.

If children are hungry, they need to be fed. It's hard to learn if your stomach is growling. We need to take that on. If students can't see the blackboard, need eyeglasses, we need to do that. If students need a social worker or counselor to work through the challenges they're facing at home in the community, we need to do that.

The arts significantly boost student achievement, reduce discipline problems, and increase the odds students will go on to graduate from college.

Education is the civil rights issue of our generation.

My vision is that schools need to be community centers. Schools need to be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day six, seven days a week, 12 months out of the year, with a whole host of activities, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

I just think we can't do enough of this [student exchanges]... And when you get young children traveling internationally, I think they come back different people. And you can't put a price tag - you can't put a value on that.

I worry when athletes are simply used by their universities to produce revenue, to make money for them, nothing to show at the back end. I grew up with a lot of players who had very, very tough lives after the ball started bouncing for them. And that's why I'm going to continue to fight.

Whether it's in an inner-city school or a rural community, I want those students to have a chance to take A.P. biology and A.P. physics and marine biology.

Surveys show that many talented and committed young people are reluctant to enter teaching for the long haul because they think the profession is low-paying and not prestigious enough.

Most teachers still say they love teaching though they wouldn't mind a little more respect for their challenging work and a little less blame for America's educational shortcomings.

About two-thirds of bachelor's degree holders borrow to go to school, and on average they're graduating with more than $26,000 in debt.

To encourage more top-caliber students to choose teaching, teachers should be paid a lot more, with starting salaries more in the range of $60,000 and potential earnings of as much as $150,000.

The only way we get better is to look in the mirror, assess our strengths and weaknesses, and figure out where we need to go. But if we run around saying, we're number one, we're number one, and we're not, that doesn't help us get where we need to go.

Other countries have outeducated us. They have made this a priority. And a big part of what I'm trying to do, frankly, is raise the profile of education and get America to wake up.

If the goal is to dramatically improve college completion rates, not college-going rates by itself but college completion, it's not just a college problem. We need a big focus on early childhood education. Our early childhood education system is pretty good in this country. Not enough students have opportunity. And, very discouragingly, they lose their advantage because they go to poor schools after that. So, let's focus on our babies.

The jobs of the future, as you know so well, are knowledge-based. You need college-educated folks to do this work. And so the consequences for our country are absolutely devastating if we don't start to behave in very different ways.

A postsecondary education is the ticket to economic success in America.

Far too many of our children today, our students, need remedial education. We have been lying to them. They're not really ready for college. That's not higher education's fault. That's our fault K-12.

When schools truly become centers of the community, where you have extraordinary teachers, the best teachers, the best principals, great nonprofit partners coming in during the non-school hours to support and do enrichment activities, social services, then those students will beat the odds, will beat poverty, will beat violence in the community, will beat sometimes dysfunctional families, and be productive citizens long term. They will go to college.

Other countries haves passed us by. They're outworking us. They're outcompeting us. We have got to wake up and we have got to start moving.

I'm just absolutely convinced we have to educate our way to a better economy. That's the only way we're going to get there. This is the best long-term investment we can make. And so I think it's my job to be the truth-teller.

Schools and districts and unions are working together on some really innovative things.

Historically the Department of Education hasn't been doing enough to drive the sustainability movement, and today, I promise that we will be a committed partner in the national effort to build a more environmentally literate and responsible society.

Teachers say their schools of education did not adequately prepare them for the classroom. They would have welcomed more mentoring and feedback in their early years.

Money is not the reason that people enter teaching.

What you see around the world is that poverty is not destiny. In other countries, much more systemically, student after student, school after school, year after year, educate poor and disadvantaged young people. And, so, anyone who says that you can't overcome these battles is a huge part of the problem.

We have had this massive effort on K-12 reform, raising standards, great teachers, great principals, turning around chronically failing schools, raising the bar, huge amount of progress. Let's continue that.

Whether you look at these recent PISA results, which we are mediocre at best, whether you look at a 25 percent dropout rate in this country, whether you look at, in one generation, we're not doing what we need to be doing to keep America great.

I think it's my job to tell the truth.

We need to lengthen the school day. We need to lengthen the school year. Our calendar is based upon the agrarian economy. Children in India and China are going to school 25, 30, 35 more days a year. They're just working harder than us. So, we need more time, particularly for disadvantaged children, who aren't getting those supports at home.

We need to invest in very different ways. Get the students the support they need, get them the best principals, get them the great teachers, and I promise you those students would do extraordinarily well. I have seen it all my life.

This is a devastating problem, is, the longer our children are in school, the worse they do. Year after year after year, our children in America are falling further behind. Our 3- and 4-year-olds enter kindergarten OK, and they fall further and further behind. Each year, children in other countries are learning more than children in this country. And so the gap between American student performance in Singapore and Finland and South Korea and Canada and these other countries, the gap widens year after year after year.

There's so much that we're doing wrong today. And studies show we're one of three countries that doesn't invest more in disadvantaged communities.

Hungry children are distracted children. We want to make sure nothing gets in the way of our children performing well academically, including hunger.

States should not balance their budgets on the backs of students.

I think every student needs access to technology, and I think technology can be a hugely important vehicle to help level the playing field.

Almost 24 million children - one in three - are likely growing up without their father involved in their lives.