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 DuncanTo 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.
Arne DuncanWe 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.
Arne DuncanIn America, your zip code or your socioeconomic status should never determine the quality of your education.
Arne DuncanAt 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.
Arne Duncan