Official Transcript: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan Keynote

“Welcome to Washington. We come together in an absolutely historic time in which we can transform public education in our country. Over the past hundred days I've visited over fifteen states and dozens and dozens of schools in those states: high-performing schools, struggling schools, charter schools, traditional schools - inner-city Detroit, West Virginia, Milwaukee, an Indian reservation in Montana. What was fascinating is how similar all the challenges are - inner-city, urban, rural, and suburban. Finding and supporting great teachers and great principals, building a successful school culture of high expectations, getting parents to step-up and take on more responsibility, coping with limited resources, and taking success to scale. 

"There is so much that was hopeful about my tour, and we are going to continue to travel and listen and learn. But as you guys know there's also huge reasons to be concerned. Nationally, about 30% of our students never graduate from high-school, and too many of those that do graduate struggle both academically and financially to be successful in the world of higher education.

"This is as I said though, a time of huge opportunity, with $100 billion in new money for public education.  But everyone in this room knows that money alone won’t solve this problem.  If we simply invest in the status quo that won’t get us where we need to go.  With unprecedented resources has to come unprecedented reform. And we are pushing very, very hard in four areas of reform. 

"We're pushing for high college-ready, career-ready, internationally benchmarked standards.  The idea of fifty states doing their own thing, fifty different goal posts doesn't make any sense at all. In too many states we're actually lying to children. And we've been so pleased to see in 46 states come together and commit to working toward these higher standards collectively. [APPLAUSE].

"We are asking for robust, comprehensive data systems. The data may not tell you everything but it certainly doesn't lie. We want to be able to track students to teachers. We want to be able to track teachers back to their schools of education so we can understand which schools of education are producing the teachers that are producing the students that have the greatest gain. So far only six states have met all ten requirements of the DQC campaign - so there is lots of work to do nationally there.

"Third, as everyone in this room knows, talent matters tremendously.  How do we continue to recruit and keep the best teachers and the best principals in education? How do we incent them to go to the toughest communities whether that is rural or inner-city urban? And how do we reward excellence? How do we reward areas where we have special need: math and science and foreign language? So, a tremendous amount of work to go on there.

"And then the final area of reform is probably the toughest - turning around chronically under-preforming schools - which is what i want to talk about today.  

“This is the third of four speeches leading up to the $5 Billion dollars in competitive grants, our Race to the Top, $650 million to invest in districts and non-profits the Innovation - What Works fund. $4.35 billion in Race to the Top, $350 million we've taken to the side to invest in assessment systems for states, so $4 billion - the first round of that application - will come out this fall.

“Today, I want to focus on the challenge of turning around our chronically underperforming schools. These  are schools that have failed to make progress year after year. These are schools that perpetuate poverty and that are drop-out factories. In some of these schools, the leadership has been replaced but it hasn't made a difference. Many good teachers have left them. Too few good teachers have replaced them. Many dedicated parents and ambitious students have also left and found better options. The social and physical conditions around some of these schools are absolutely horrific. They are often unsafe, underfunded, poorly run, crumbling and challenged in so many ways that the situation in some ways might feel hopeless.

"That is, until you meet the students and talk with them and listen to them about their dreams for the future. I went to Detroit, where two out of three students drop out.  However, the seniors I met with were all going to college.  They know what they want to be and they don't want to waste a minute.  I went to a high school on an indian reservation in Montana where 80 percent of the adults there are unemployed.  And the high school I went to could name one student who had completed college; one graduate in the past six years.  I talked to ninth graders there and they begged to be challenged.  They think everyone has given up on them; no one expects them to succeed.  Yet despite bleak conditions, they still believe in the redeeming power of education.  There are approximately 5,000 schools in this chronically underperforming category.  Roughly five percent of our country's total.  About half are in big cities, maybe a third are in rural areas and the rest are in suburbs and medium sized towns.  This is a national problem: urban, rural and suburban.  

"I won’t play the blame game, and I also won’t make excuses for failure. I’m much more interested in finding ways to fix these schools than analyzing whose at fault or whose to blame.  States and districts have a legal obligation to hold administrators and teachers accountable, demand change and where necessary, compel it.  More importantly, they have a moral obligation to do the right thing for those children, no matter how painful or how unpleasant.  Yet few districts in America have risen to that challenge.  Too many administrators are unwilling to close failing schools and create better options for those children in those under-served communities. There are some exceptions: Hartford, Pittsburgh, Denver, New York, Oakland and right here in D.C.  In a few isolated cases, failing schools were taken over by charter organizations: Green Dot in L.A., Mastery Charters in Philadelphia.  Some of these turnarounds are showing real promise.  Finally in a number of cities and states: Alabama, Tennessee, New York, Chicago, Miami and Baltimore.  Affiliates of the NEA and AFT have taken over failing schools.  

"I closed about 60 schools in Chicago, some for low enrollment and some explicitly because they were failing academically.  We reopened about a dozen of these schools with new leadership and staff.  Some are run by the district and some are run by the Academy of Urban School Leadership, a non-profit partner.  All of them use union teachers.  Today, these schools are doing much better.  Our first two turnarounds: Dodge and Williams Elementary Schools have more than tripled the percentage of students meeting standards in the past five years.  Sherman Elementary saw a five point jump in the percentage of students meeting standards in just the first year.  Harvard reduced absences by five days per student.  And Oar High School saw a fifteen percentage point jump in attendance in just its first year.  

"Turnarounds are not easy. It requires you to build trust with parents.  The way it plays in the media can sometimes polarize people initially.  Some adults are still protesting me back in Chicago for closing schools, but it was absolutely the right thing to do.  You have to listen to our students and listen to their families.  The parents in these turnaround schools now talk about these kids looking forward to going to school for the first time, coming home and talking about their teachers.  They say it's a totally different atmosphere even though it's the same schools, same neighborhoods with the same children in the same social-economic challenges.  It gives you hope that anything is possible and that with enough effort and determination and the right people, this can absolutely work.

"That's what we need to do in schools all over America.  The fact is there are way too many schools that don't pass the "Would we send our own kids there?" test.  I think that might be the most important test there is.  And some of them, by they way, are charter schools.  

"The charter movement is absolutely one of the most profound changes in American education, bringing new options to under-served communities and introducing competition and innovation into the educational system.  All across America we see great charter schools.  From Noble Street in Chicago to the Idea Academy in Texas, Inner City Education Foundation and Partnerships to Uplift Communities in L.A. and the Friendship Public Charter Schools here in D.C.

"What I like most about the best charters, is that they all seem to think differently.  The Denver School of Science and Technology serves grades 6-12. They take 6th graders on college visits. Their students spend years choosing a college, not months. And 100% of their graduates go on to four year colleges and universities.

"North Lawndale College Prep is in one of Chicago's most violent communities on the west side of the city. Yet they decided strategically to get rid of their security staff and instead invested all their scarce resources into social workers. Think about that shift. The extra personalization is  one reason that more than 90% of their graduates go on to college. 

"I just visited North Star Charter School in Newark where they have literally reversed the achievement gap. Their students are outperforming the state and every single graduate was accepted into a four-year college. These results obviously speak for themselves. 

“So, I’m a big, big supporter of these successful charter schools, and so is the president. And that’s why one of our top priorities is a $52 million dollar increase in charter school funding for our FY 2010 budget. [APPLAUSE] As part of that we want to change the law and allow federally funded charters replicate.  The idea of doing more and more one-offs just isn’t going to get us where we need to go.

"But the CREDO report last week was absolutely a wake-up call, even if you dispute some of its conclusions or its language.  The charter movement is putting itself at risk by allowing too many second-rate and even third-rate schools to exist. Your goal should always be quality, not quantity. [APPLAUSE]

Charter authorizers need to do a better job of holding schools accountable and the charters schools need to support them, loudly and sincerely. I absolutely applaud the work that the Alliance is doing with the National Association of Charter School Authorizers to strengthen academic and operational quality. We need that. We also need to be willing to hold low-performing charters accountable. 

"I love charter schools, but I closed three in Chicago and turned away more than 100 proposals because we didn't feel they were strong enough. There should be a high bar for charter approval and in exchange for real and meaningful autonomy, there must be absolute accountability. 

"In some states, the CREDO report singles out Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, and Texas, accountability is minimal. That is unacceptable. And instead of hearing it from me or from CREDO, the education community should hear it from all of you collectively. Just as the American Bar Association polices the legal community and the AMA does teh same for the medical profession, we need to get more serious about accountability.

"I want to solute the California Charter Schools Association which recently announced an accountability proposal that links charter renewal to student achievement and student growth. We should watch this closely and see if this can become a model for states that aren't quiet there yet. 

“We also need to work together to help people better understand charters. Many people equate charters with privatization.  And part of the problem is that some charters overtly seperate themselves from the surrounding district. This is why opponents often say that charters take money away from public schools. We all know that is absolutely misleading. 

"Charter schools are public schools serving our children with our money. Instead of standing apart, charters should be partnering with districts, sharing lessons and sharing credit. Charters are supposed to  be laboratories of innovation that we can all learn from.  And charters are not inherently anti-union.  Albert Shanker the legendary former head of the AFT was an early advocate. Many quality charters today actually are unionized. What distinguishes great charters is not the absence of a labor agreement but the presence of an educational strategy build around common sense ideas:  More time on task, aligned curricula, high parent involvement, great teacher support, and strong leadership. All of these qualities exist in great traditional schools as well. 

“We know what success looks like, I see it the moment I enter a school. It’s clean and orderly; the staff is positive and welcoming and the kids in the classroom are absolutely focused. I see award winning schoolwork on the walls. I see discipline and enthusiasm in our children. And I see parents engaged and collaborating with teachers to help their students do better.

"The hard part is to replicate these conditions everywhere. And you need to challenge yourselves and challenge each other to turn one success into a hundred, and a hundred into two hundred.  At the same time when you see charter schools that aren’t measuring up, don’t defend them or make excuses for them. Admit that the adults in the building, for whatever reason, just can’t get it right and something has to change. As you all know that our children only have one chance at education, and collectively you are helping to give them that chance. That is an enormous, enormous duty  and I am so grateful to every single one of you who willingly take on that responsibility. And I am especially to those of you that are beating the odds every single day.

"But I came here today to challenge you a bit and to ask you to think about doing even more. We need everyone who cares about public education to take on the toughest assignment of all and get in the business of turning around our lowest performing schools. That includes states, districts, non-profits, for-profits, universities, unions, and charter organizations.

"I know your typical approach is to start new schools with a few grades and ramp up over time. I absolutely respect that approach. It is a smart, successful strategy. And we don't want you to stop. 

“The president and I have expended a great deal of political capital urging states to lift charter caps and allow more charters to open, and states are responding. Illinois has raised its cap, and Tennessee came back into session to pass a charter expansion proposal.

"But over the coming years, America needs to find 5,000 high-energy, heroic principals to take over these struggling schools. And we will need a quarter of a million great teachers who are willing to do the toughest work in public education. We will find them in the union ranks, the charter community, the business world, and the non-profit sector. We will not find them overnight. I do not expect 1,000 will show up next fall. We can start with 100-200 in the fall of 2010, and steadily build until we are turning around 1,000 schools per year. 

"We have great, great charter networks like Aspire, KIPP, Achievement First, and Uncommon Schools. You are absolutely going to scale. Today, I'm challenging you to adapt your educational model to turning around our lowest performing schools.  I need you to step outside your comfort zone and go into rural communities and small cities. 

“We’re asking states and districts to think very differently about how they do business. Your knowledge and your experience can absolutely shape they are thinking.  We have a lot of money to support this work.  Aside from the $5 billion in Race to the Top and What Works in Innovation funds, we have $3.5 billion in Title I School Improvement grants and we’re seeking another $1.5 billion in FY2010. That’s $5 billion specifically targeting turnarounds providing hundreds of thousands of dollars above normal funding levels for every turnaround school.

"And with the support of Congress, we will have even more money in subsequent years to support this work. Leading foundations and the national education unions are both interested in turnarounds. Great non-profits, the New Schools Venture Fund, Teach for America, The New Teacher Project and New Leaders for New Schools will also play a role. 

“In the coming months we will develop an application process that spells out exactly what we mean by turnarounds. But let me start to paint a rough picture for you. At a minimum for a turnaround to succeed, you have to change the school culture. In most cases simply replacing the principal is not enough.  We need, we want transformation not tinkering.

"We have four basic models in mind. Some will work better in big cities while others are more suited for smaller communities. And we are still working this through so, we welcome your ideas.

"The first option is based upon what we did in Chicago. We awarded planning grants in the Fall so new principals and lead teachers could develop and adapt curriculum to better meet the needs of their students. During the Spring, they began recruiting teachers and they take over the school in June. Under this model, the children stay and the adults leave. Teachers can reapply for their jobs and some get rehired, but most go elsewhere.  A few leave the profession which is not all bad. Not all people are cut out for teaching, and like in every other profession people burn out. [APPLAUSE]

"In our view, at least half of the staff and the leadership should be completely new. And if you really want a culture change, that may very well be a requirement for our grants.  Our second option also involves replacing the staff and leadership and turning it over to a charter or for-profit management organization. As I mentioned Green Dot, Mastery Charters and AUSL are doing this, but we need more of you to get into the turnaround game.

"I know this is tough work, but there is a real upside. You start with a school full of students, so there is no need for student recruiting and you also get a building which  I know has been a big obstacle for many charter operators. Obviously, you need to build a full staff more quickly but that can be done. And I am confident that many charter operators will figure this out and will succeed brilliantly and create new models for our country. I also recognize that you won’t always succeed,  I accept that, but what I won’t accept is a nation that turns its back on millions of children in failing schools while successful models are flourishing not just in the next community or the next town, but often literally just blocks from that failing school.

"Our third turnaround model keeps most of the existing staff but changes the culture in the following ways.  Again we are open to input on this, but at a minimum they must establish a rigorous performance evaluation system along with more support, training, and mentoring. They must change and strengthen the curriculum and instructional program. They must increase learning time for students on afternoons, weekends and in the summer. And provide more time for teachers to collaborate plan, and strategize. Principals and leadership teams must be given more flexibility around budgeting, staffing and calendar. They must use everything we know about how to create a successful school culture, but they have to do it all at once with enough resources to get the job done.

"This approach might make more sense in smaller communities where there isn't a ready supply of new teachers and leaders, and where the current staff won't have other options. This model also gives unions an opportunity for fixing schools without replacing staff. We are beginning a conversation with the unions about flexibility with respect to our most under-performing schools. I absolutely expect that they'll meet us more than halfway because they share our concern. They understand that no one can accept systemic failure. 

"We should also be crystal clear. This model can not be a dodge to avoid the difficult but necessary choices. This can not be the easy way out. It has to work and show results quickly, in real and measurable ways in terms of attendance, parental involvement and student achievement.

"All of these models assume a year or more of planning. We should be starting this summer, now, to build teams that will take over schools in the fall 2010. Schools and districts can use Tile I funds right now to start  that planning process. 

"The last of our four turnaround models is simply to close underperforming schools and reenroll the students in better schools. This may seem like surrender but in some cases it is the only responsible thing to do. It instantly improves the learning conditions for those students and brings the failing school to a swift and thorough conclusion."

“Now let me making something very clear. Closing underperforming schools is a state and a local responsibility. It is up to the state and district superintendents and local political leadership. If they won’t make these choices, I can’t force them to do it. My job is to support the work, provide funding, help define success, and help drive public consensus towards the desired outcome.  But the people who run our schools, and the parents who depend on them must demand change if they want this to happen. And this only works with the full support of the community the faith-based, the political, the social service agencies, the police, the Boys and Girls clubs, and all the other institutions that serve children and families. A great principal can't do this alone. 

"I came to Washington because I because I believe in education. I know that change is possible. I know we have the talent, and the ideas to succeed. But the only question I have is if we have the courage, the political will to do what’s right for children.  We’ve seen what happens when caution trumps courage, nothing changes and kids lose.  And we as educators in those situations become perpetuators of poverty and social failure. That is not a label any of us who devote our lives to education want to wear.

"We’ve also seen the opposite where bold leaders have found and absolutely defeated the status quo, we’ve seen traditional public schools where creative and dedicated educators build strong teams, boosted parental involvement and raised student achievement. We’ve seen it in charter schools, where gutsy entrepreneurs abandoned lucrative careers, staked a claim in struggling communities and are now they’re producing miracles.  In fact, I’m convinced there are more education miracles happening every day in classrooms across our country today then at any time in our recent history. We need more of that and need to build upon that success.”

“There is no shortage of courage in this room. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t risk takers.

So, I’m asking once again to put your reputations on the line and take on this challenge. I’m asking for your help because I believe in you. I’m asking you, because I’m hopeful. I’m asking above all because our children need you and our country needs you. We may never have an opportunity like this again: This president, this Congress, $100 billion dollars, and a broad and growing consensus around the importance of education.

So, this is our time and this is our moment. This is our chance to transform the one thing in society with the power to transform lives.  The path to success has never been clearer. The education reform movement is not a table where we just sit around and talk. It is a train that is leaving the station and gaining speed momentum, and direction.  It is time for everyone everywhere to get onboard!  [APPLAUSE]

Thank you so much and I’ll take your questions now:

SETH ANDREW:  “Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here it is an honor.  My name is Seth Andrew from Democracy Prep Charter School, the highest performing public school in Central Harlem on the Chancellor’s progress report and we’re eager to expand and try the turnaround model, so thank you for the challenge.  Our challenge actually is not only in New York, but also in Rhode Island and we would love your support in Rhode Island and states across the country for calling the elected officials and letting them know they jeopardize their stimulus funding if they don’t make real change right now in legislatures like they did in Tennessee…(APPLAUSE)…So, your political leadership right now means more than you know.  And your calls to Speakers of the House, Majority Leaders, people all over the country can make a huge difference, so I hope you’ll call Rhode Island today, and states across the country to make a big difference.   [LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]

SECRETARY DUNCAN:  I appreciate so much your leadership and your willingness to think about this turnaround model.  We are fighting this on a state by state battle, that’s the battleground.  Places like Rhode Island that are thinking about under-funding charters are obviously going to put themselves at a huge competitive disadvantage going forward. So we don’t think that’s a smart thing for them to do, and we’re going to make that very very clear.”  [APPLAUSE]

QUESTION 2: Mr. Secretary, no question, just a comment. I know that we are all supposed to be future-oriented and looking toward the future. However I am here to thank you for your work in Chicago, particularly with the charter school movement, particularly your support of UNO. I am presently the Director of Academic Affairs at the UNO Charter School Network, very happy, very honored to be there, but have a whole lot of my experience working under you at the Chicago Public Schools. I want to thank you and the Mayor for your support of charters in Chicago, and want to assure you that we will continue. I know that the country will benefit from your leadership and your experience in Chicago.

I also want to do a sidebar, I call your attention today to the front page of the Chicago Tribune which has an article on the UNO charter school network. Thank you.

SECRETARY DUNCAN: Sister Barber is one of my heros from home. Great to see you again. Thanks for all your hard work. 

QUESTION 3: Good Morning, Mr. Secretary. My name is Mark Willis and I'm with Omni Schools, a proposed CMO in Memphis, Tennessee. And I'm so grateful for your work on the movement of the legislation as we hope to benefit from it with the cap now increasing. And my question, as you mentioned $52 billion in the FY2011 budget, the question is around specifically facilities. As we expand and scale up, that continues to be a challenge, and so how does that fit into future budgets? 

SECRETARY DUNCAN: That is a real challenge. I wish it was $52 billion for charters, it is $52 million in additional money in the FY2010 um, the overall budget is closer to $52 billion. But facilities is a real issue. We want to help on that. That is part of my interest in the turnaround model because obviously by definition with a turnaround school, you get the building. And we recognize in many places including Chicago, facilities were a real, real challenge and we need to think not just budgetary, but strategically how we make more facilities available. This turn around model gives a very clear direction and an opportunity to get in the door.

QUESTION 4: Mr. Secretary, Frieda Deskin from Oklahoma City's Advance Science and Technologies Education Charter School. I would echo the facilities issue and say that we are paying $900,000/year for rent and it is a killer. But the question that I had is regarding the moneys that do come down. How are we ensuring that the money acctually gets down to the charters? That is a big concern and an issue for us. 

SECRETARY DUNCAN: Again we have to watch that very, very closely. As I said, charters are public schools, they are our kids, our money, and accountable to us. So, charter schools should be funded like every other school. Where states are playing games and under-funding charters or whatever, we will come down like a ton of bricks on that. We are going to watch that very, very closely.

QUESTION 5: This is a quick question. We appreciate your courage as a Democrat, and I'm a Republican, but I appreciate you taking the lead. But we need help in Texas with the teachers associations, and I'm sure everyone else in the nation needs it. How can you get them to come along with this great idea of charter schools?

SECRETARY DUNCAN: I'll just close on this. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. What I'm pushing is that we all have to move outside of our comfort zones. Let me just take one minute and close on this. We are absolutely going to challenge unions to think differently, behave differently. I'm asking the charter movement to think differently and behave differently and focus on the accountability piece. I'll also say that as much as I'm going to push other people, I'm going to look in the mirror and be very self-critical. I'll tell you that historically, the Department of Education was, I think, part of the problem as well.

I've always joked, but I meant seriously when the Department of Education used to call me in Chicago, that was not a call I looked forward to. That was a call about a compliance report or something like. Our challenge internally is can we become not this big compliance-driven bureaucracy but can we become the engine of innovation and scale up what works and take to scale best practices? And so we are going to push the charter movement. We are going to push the unions. But I promise we are going to push ourselves harder than anyone else. Collectively we all have to behave differently. We have to behave differently together and we have to move outside our comfort zones. That is the only way we are getting to where we need to go as a country. 

Thank you so much for your hard work. Thanks for your commitment. Thanks for having me this morning.