Secretary Duncan says the Department will 'Come Down Like a Ton of Bricks' on States that Underfund Charters

After delivering a keynote address at the National Charter Schools Conference in Washington, D.C., U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan took a few questions on charter funding, facilities and how states' attitudes toward charters will affect their access to funds available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Read the Q&A transcript below and the complete keynote address here.

June 22 - Question and Answer Session with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan

QUESTION 1: 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.