The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward spoke with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Tuesday about the Obama administration plan to reform education. Our story on the interview is here. Below is a transcript of the interview.
The DC: … As far as the spending freeze that the president announced or is going to announce, is that going to have any impact on education funding?
AD: Well, I’ll just say, obviously, the budget will come out next week, but we feel very, very good about how things are going and, you know, stay tuned.
The DC: Okay, does that mean you don’t know? Or you just can’t say?
AD: It means stay tuned.
The DC: Alright, one other just kind of big picture question I had was we’ve seen health care hit some turbulence and just the agenda right now from the White House is hitting some turbulence overall. Do you think that education may become an unintentional beneficiary of this where it’s one of the good stories the White House has to tell? Do you think they might be turning to this more often in this year because of some of this political turbulence?
AD: Yeah, it’s a good question. I don’t really sort of focus on the other stuff. I do think obviously education is the one issue that folks can rally behind on a bipartisan basis. That this has to be the issue that politics and ideology go to the side, and so far, you’re seeing – whether it was my confirmation hearings or all the work we’ve done this year, or traveling the country with Rev. Sharpton and former Speaker Newt Gingrich, to the most recent meeting last week with the Big 8, when we started talking about reauthorizing EFCA – I think you’ve seen us from day one trying to absolutely work in a bipartisan way because I think that’s the only way we need to go educationally. I do think, you know, House and Senate, Republicans and Democrats, everybody wants to accomplish something. Everybody wants to see education, you know, improve in this country, and I’ve been so pleased to see a common sense of urgency. So I do think, you know, obviously there’s a million things that could go wrong, but I do think there’s a real possibility to do something great for the country here and to dramatically improve the quality of education, and to do that it’s only going to happen if we work in a bipartisan way. There’s no other way for this to be successful.
The DC: So far, you have seen bipartisanship from Republicans or it’s remaining to be seen?
AD: Absolutely, absolutely. It literally from, you know, before I started. It started beginning with the confirmation hearings, all the way through last year whether it’s support of ARRA, whether it’s the Big 8 meeting we did last week, you know, the House and Senate leadership, you know, four top Dems, four top Republicans. There’s been an absolute sense of bipartisanship. I’ve traveled the country with Republican senators and governors and local leaders, Democratic senators and governors, and this is the one issue everybody knows we need to come together on. It’s actually interesting when you talk to some of the folks in Congress, someone like Rep. Kildee, he’s just convinced that in the history of education, the only times when the country has really done the right thing is when we’re working in a bipartisan way. So this is not some new idea. He gave me a really good history lesson on progress over the past couple decades, and he was pretty clear that that only happened when folks put aside politics and ideology. So it was really fascinating to hear.
The DC: On Race to the Top, one thing that is sticking in my mind is $4 billion is a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the $100 billion or so that came out under the stimulus. Now, a lot of people say that the stimulus money was doled out without any strings attached. So do you think that that’s a fair criticism, that the Race to the Top is, though it’s a lot of money, doesn’t really compare to the money that went out under stimulus without any strings?
AD: Well, two things. First of all, on the stimulus, a big part of what we were trying to do was stave off an education catastrophe, and as you know, Jon, we’ve been able to save somewhere between 300,000 and 350,000 education jobs for this school year and without that that would have just been an education catastrophe. You would have seen class sizes skyrocket. You would have seen librarians and social workers and counselors laid off. Now, we obviously still did see layoffs around the country unfortunately because of things that you said. It’s so tight at the state and local level. But it would have been just exponentially worse, and so that was hugely important. What we did as part of that we asked folks to put in place, start to put in place, a series of reforms: transparency around data systems, really being clear about how they were using resources. And so the seeds of reform were planted with that. Obviously, you’ve seen with Race to the Top just the staggering level of progress before we spent a dime: 48 state school chiefs and governors working together on common standards which would have been unimaginable. Forty states plus the District of Columbia submit Race to the Top applications in the first round. Another eight or nine states lined up behind that. You know, a number of states tear down firewalls, data firewalls between student achievement and teacher evaluation. Many states loosening or eliminating restrictions on innovation in schools that are demonstrating the ability to improve outcomes for children. So we’ve seen a huge amount of progress and momentum happening even before we spent a dime. So this Race to the Top has been huge. And obviously I was really, really pleased to see the president last week talk about continuing it … in the FY11 budget. As I’ve traveled the country, Jon, and I’ve been to 31, 32 states, the biggest concern I’ve heard is people love Race to the Top, but they’re just really scared that we’d just walk away from it. And so a lot of folks see, whether it’s the district level or the state level or the national level, they see good ideas, you know, come and go. And so what the president really put on the table says, “No, we’re in this for the long haul. In fact, we want to make this a permanent part of what we do.” So the feedback I’ve gotten on that from around the country has just been really, really encouraging and reassuring, that folks understand that we’re in this and we’re in it for the long haul. And we understand how significant this opportunity is.
The DC: I had one or two detailed questions on Race to the Top, but just real quickly on stimulus. Is there any concern – I’ve heard a lot of concern – that stimulus money will end and then the states will be left on the hook for expenditures that they can’t afford. Is that in any way a concern as it relates to all these education jobs?
AD: Um, yes. It is something we worry about, and obviously, you know, the economy hasn’t quite bounced back yet. Things are tough so we need to think about what we do for September of this year 2010 and September 2011, and it’s something we’re very cognizant of. But you know times are just very, very tough out there. Everything’s getting cut, all governmental services getting cut, and obviously, unfortunately, education is not immune to that. One of the assurances we did ask – we did not ask but we mandated – was that education not be cut more than any other governmental services, not be disproportionally cut so that folks wouldn’t be using our money to supplant and create a bigger cliff, and so that hasn’t happened. We’ve been able to guard against that but it’s, as you know so well, Jon, families are hurting, you know, governments are hurting, cities are hurting, states are hurting. It’s tough times out there, and we’re absolutely in education feeling that.
The DC: Alright, on Race to the Top, the Wall Street Journal earlier this month raised questions about whether the requirement about local school districts’ support will allow unions to undermine attempts by states like, they said Minnesota and Florida to place more emphasis on tying pay to teacher performance and other reforms. The specific thing they said was that 45 out 500 points are awarded for getting “local education agencies” to support the application. Is that a legitimate criticism? I think they said there needed to be guidance on this. But couldn’t unions use that to hold back states from implementing reform?
AD: Let me just say if anybody is holding back reform then we simply won’t fund those states. A nd so this is a real test of character and courage right now and so where folks are working together, where folks aren’t collaborating – this is going to be very, very competitive. And I think people still, there’s still some expectation that we’re just going to fund every application that comes in. And I can absolutely assure you there are going to be many more losers than winners. We’re going to be very tough-minded about this. And so where folks are playing games and trying to perpetuate the status quo or resistance to change, we’re simply not going to fund them, and it’s going to cost their states hundreds of millions of dollars, literally. And, so, there are two rounds of this and folks that don’t quite understand how serious we are will have a chance to apply for the second round. But, we’re taking this very, very seriously.
The DC: I think the question, though, is, is the system that you guys have set up set up in such a way that it allows unions to hold back others in their state that want to live up to this tough standard that you’re setting?
AD: Well, first of all, we had roughly 600 local union leaders sign Race to the Top applications and commit to reform, so I think there’s tremendous support that folks have demonstrated … around the country. And again, this a piece of the points you talked about, that’s a piece of the points but it’s less than ten percent of the points. And so, you know, what we are trying to do is be very balanced in this and we want to encourage collaboration, and we want folks working together. But there’s no one factor that would make or break for us. The only thing we insisted on was that you had to be able to link student performance to teachers. We think great teaching makes a huge difference in students’ lives and outside of this, this is real competitive. They’re going to see which states now are capable of winning the gold medal. This is again very, very competitive, and we want those states that win to collaborate and lead the country where we need to go, and those states that go in the first round to come back even stronger in the second round. So, this is a chance for folks to continue to learn and work together in very different ways.
The DC: Alright, real quick then.
AD: That will be the last one. I need to run. Thanks, Jon.
The DC: Okay, I was going to ask about highly qualified teachers …
AD: Okay, go ahead. One more. There’s time.
The DC: Okay, well I was going to ask about highly qualified teachers, but I think instead I’ll ask about vouchers because that’s been a real controversial thing in D.C. Juan Williams had some real, real tough words recently and that’s been a longstanding criticism. Why hasn’t the administration done more to stop Congress from ending this program?
AD: Well, I think, as you know, we’ve worked very hard to make sure that students who are in the program have the chance to stay in those schools. And the program was due to end and we pushed very hard to make sure that children who are in schools and safe and happy and learning had a chance to continue to stay in those schools. What we said going forward is what we want to do is make sure that every child in D.C. has the chance to go to a great school, not just peel off 1 or 2 percent from a school and leave the rest to drown. And a big part of Race to Top, as you know, is our turnaround initiative. The goal of turnaround is not to save one or two children. The goal of turnaround, the turnaround work, is to transform the opportunities for every child, 100% of children in those low-performing schools. And we want to work with D.C. and other school districts, urban and rural, who have the courage and commitment to fundamentally change what’s not working, and to do it at scale. That’s where I think we need to invest our time, energy and resources going forward.
The DC: It does sound though that you feel like the voucher system is in some ways not the best approach.
AD: Well, again, those students that are already in schools what we worked really hard to support that. I do think we can be working to save every child, not just pull one or two into a life raft and leave the other, you know the rest of the children in the school to drown. That, to me, is more the unacceptable. What this country hasn’t done, Jon, at scale is to turn around schools. I challenge the country to think about turning around the bottom 1 percent, the bottom thousand schools every single year. This work is tough and hard and controversial, but if you do that, three, four, five, six, years in a row you will eliminate those schools who are perpetuating poverty and social failure and come back with dramatically better options and do it as a country. And I think we have a unique opportunity to do that. It’s going to be very, very tough but that’s going to fundamentally change education in our country, this country, if we have the courage to do the right thing by children here.
Allie McCubrey contributed to this report.