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.
Arne DuncanState governments generate less revenue in a recession. As state leaders struggle to make up for lost revenue, legislatures tend to cut funding for higher education. Colleges, in turn, answer these funding cuts with tuition hikes.
Arne DuncanI think every student needs access to technology, and I think technology can be a hugely important vehicle to help level the playing field.
Arne DuncanI 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.
Arne DuncanI 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.
Arne Duncan