"Department of Education Twitter Town Hall"
> First ever Twitter Town Hall meeting at the Department of Education. I'm John Marrow. Next to me, of course, is Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. We don't have a lot of time, so let's go right to questions. I've been getting a lot of questions. People have been sending in questions and the way it's going to work is you and I are going to talk, I'll ask a question, you answer it, they're going to take my question, tweet it, take your answer, tweet it and we'll…
> Sounds good.
> …see what we can cover here.
> New adventure.
> New adventure. Absolutely, right. Let's start with "No Child Left Behind." You have called it a slow motion train wreck. When did you come to that conclusion?
> I just think the law is fundamentally broken, John. And we're at a time in education; we have to get better faster than ever before. The law is way too punitive.
> When did you realize that?
> It's becoming more and more apparent. I lived on the other side of the law for seven and half years, but we have multiple ways to fail and no rewards for success.
> For how long have you known that?
> It's become more and more clear as we've approached this 2014 deadline.
> Why is it still the law of the land? It expired in 2007.
> Well, it should have been reauthorized a while ago. I desperately hoped that Congress would reauthorize it and fix it in a bipartisan way. It's too punitive, too prescriptive, dummied down standards, know the curriculum, Congress hasn't acted. So as we move into September, we're going to go out with the waiver package, work directly with states and provide a lot more flexibility for states and districts and teachers to give them the room to hit a high bar.
> Some are saying you are circumventing the will of Congress by granting waivers.
> You know…
> You're breaking the law.
> Far from it. Secretary Spellings' my predecessor, exercised similar authority; we absolutely have the authority. And John, this is an imperfect solution. This has always been Plan B for me. I would much prefer Congress to reauthorize and hopefully our waiver package can be a bridge or a transition to that.
> Who's going to get waivers?
> States will apply and I've talked to almost every governor, I think, I've talked to, 47, 48 governors and it was interesting, John. There's just lots of noise here in Washington. Every single governor has said thanks for moving in this direction. Not one governor had said, "We don't need this." And many governors have actually said, "Thank God, someone in Washington is listening to real teachers and real people."
> So, how do you get a waiver? How does this stand…?
> We haven't put the package out yet. We'll do that probably in mid-September. We'll have a high bar, but where states have college and career (ph) standards and 45 states have adopted there, where states have been created around teacher support and principal support and evaluation, where states are taking on low-performing schools. For me the grand tradeoff is where they're showing courage, have a high bar. We need to give them a lot more flexibility, a lot more room to move.
> So you are from another perspective. You are actually going to exercise even more control over public education than is allowed under "No Child Left Behind," if you are deciding who gets waivers.
> Well, it's nice--it's not more control over education. It is staying were states are raising standards; we want to give them room to hit those higher standards. Right now, under the current law they get penalized for doing the right thing and I just think we have to give a lot more flexibility, a lot more time. So I would argue it's a narrower, it's a smaller federal footprint. A lot more time and a lot more flexibility at the local level. I'm frankly trying to get Washington out of the way.
> But, they don't get waivers unless they agree to do what you want them to do.
> If they're doing the right thing. So I think we could debate that. If they have low standards, if they're dummying down standards, lying to toe the line to parents, that's not someone I want to partner with. But we're seeing this huge amount of courage around the country, 45 states have great standards. Where they're not taking on achievement gaps and low-performing schools, where they're accepting the status quo, that's not someone I want to partner with. But we're seeing huge courage there. So I think we'll see what happens but I think you'll see many, many states more than interested and hopefully successful.
> Do you expect to grant a lot of waivers at this stage?
> We'll see. But there's going to be huge amount of interest. And, for me, again, the real tradeoff is where there's a high bar, not dummying things down, a high bar, give folks a lot more room to move.
> Do you think Congress will tackle "No Child Left Behind?"
> They have to and, again, this is the law of the land minus the--what I'm doing has always been Plan B. So I said, I hope this is a bridge or a transition to Plan A, but they need to fix this law for the country. We can't have a law on the books that has so many perverse incentives and disincentives, that hurt children, hurt teachers, hurt schools, hurt districts with--at a time, like I said, we have to be doing better than we ever have. We can't have a law that stands in the way, that's an impediment to creativity's the innovation. That's the case right now. So I'm doing my best in a--you know, in a situation where Congress is not functioning real well together. I'm doing my best to listen to real people in trying to solve a problem.
> Some people are saying the real lesson of "No Child Left Behind:" is that Washington cannot run public education.
> Oh, Washington can never run public education. And what we want to do is, is we want to be a good partner. We want to reward courage. We want to reward excellence. We want to reward creativity. We want to hold folks accountable to high bar, that education has always been and should be at the local level. And the best ideas, I've always said, in education are never going to come from me or frankly from anyone else in Washington. They're always going to come from great teachers, great principals at the local level. We want to hold them accountable but give them lots more room to move and to do the right thing for the children of their community, where they know best with those children and what their community needs.
> Do you listen to teachers? I've been getting a lot of questions from teachers. Why isn't he listening to us?
> Yes. So I listened to teachers on--basically, a daily basis. We have amazing teacher ambassadors who are full-time working here. We have teacher ambassadors around the country.
> You have a Twitter account. Do you follow any individual teachers?
> I don't--I'm not following anyone individually on Twitter yet. I'm going--I'm a Twitter novice and I'm learning so, hope to do more going forward. I do conference calls with teachers. I visit hundreds and hundreds of schools each year. And everywhere I go, I'm listening to teachers, to principals, to parents, to students. That's hugely, hugely important and that's how I learn.
> Do you?
> And, actually, so many of our ideas in the waiver package frankly have come from great ideas from teachers and principals.
> There's a lot of resentment coming through on this Twitter feed that you are not listening to teachers. Are you saying now that you are going to start getting the--following on Twitter?
> I would do a better job on Twitter if I--I'm learning every single day. But whether it's through Twitter, whether it's on conference calls, whether it's in schools, on, you know, almost a daily basis, most weeks, I'm in two, three, four schools a week.
> Because what they are saying is, or some of them anyway are saying is, why did it take Secretary Duncan so long to wake up to the fact that "No Child Left Behind" is a train wreck?
> Well, it didn't--it didn't take me so long to wake up to it. We've worked hard at Congress to reauthorize and, you know, we put out there, the President was very clear that if Congress didn't act, we would. And we're stepping up and doing it now.
> "Race to the Top" in charter schools. What have you--and "Race to the Top" is a pretty dramatic experiment that not only the grants you've--that, I guess, 12 states or 10 in the district.
> Yes.
> But a lot of other place states have made some changes because of it. Are you declaring "Race to the Top" a success?
> We have a long way to go, but the amount of progress we've seen is pretty extraordinary. What's been amazing to me, John, is it wasn't--it wasn't just the states who received the funding. We're probably seeing as much change in states that didn't receive grants than those who did. So, it was a lot of money, but at the end of day, it wasn't about the money. It's really providing the space and the opportunity for folks to do courageous things. But, if you come back to the idea, John, that historically, every state had their own standards.
> Yes.
> And may states, dummied down standards because of "No Child Left Behind;" all the wrong incentives. Thanks in part to "No Child Left Behind"--sorry, I'm sorry. Thanks in part to "Race to the Top," 45 states have raised standards, college and career standards, that's an absolute game changer. And for the first time in our country, a child in Mississippi and a child in Massachusetts is going to be measured by the same yardstick. Two and half years ago, John, no one in this country would have predicted, no one predicted that 45 states would race the bar, college and career standards for every single child. That is so important. And there have been other things that happened, but again, really having the highest of standards across the country voluntarily adopted has been a huge step in the right direction. I'm so proud of the courage we've seen from states.
> "Race to the Top" in charter schools, that was an essential criterion. You had to remove the cap. Why your enthusiasm for Turner Schools? You know their spotty record.
> Oh, absolutely. I've been very clear, John, I always did. I'm for more good schools and good charter schools are part of the solution, bad charter schools are part of the problem. Good traditional schools are part of the solution. Bad traditional schools are part of the problem. But what I think is that we have to have more innovation. I want to see good charters replicate. I want to see good district schools replicate. And these are always false debates. I think we just need more good public schools.
> You said they're false debates, but you have come down on the side of charters and you are not particularly tough on bad charter schools.
> No.
> You just say I'm for good…
> No, I fundamentally disagree with that. I went and spoke to the national charter convention, please read my speech, and I challenged them and said they have to be much tougher and we have to close down low-performing charter schools. I went into an entire charter school community said, "Your good schools are doing great work every single day. Your bad schools are part of the problem. You have to stop defending them. You have to help close them down and hold them accountable."
> Michelle Reese (ph) says the same thing. She's a charter supporter. So are you--are you faulting the folks who--when the umbrella over charter schools for not being tough enough?
> I'm faulting--we all point fingers. What I just think as a country, John, we just need to reward success and replicate it and where we see failure, we need to challenge it. So we're turning it around. For the first time in this country, we're turning around low-performing schools. Challenge the status quo. We have 40, 50, 60% dropout rates. If those schools are traditional, we need to turn them around. If they're charter, we need to turn them around and close them down. I've been explicitly clear about that from day one.
> So, if you're being explicitly clear, are you not being heard because charters are not closing down. I mean, we've been--we've been following the charter experiment in New Orleans for a documentary and for PBS News Hour. And, 70% of their kids, they are in charters schools, as you know. But very few charters have actually closed down.
> So, if they are very low performing, they either need to be closed or turned around, and I would say the same thing for traditional schools. So I'd say, John, both sides of the fence, where we see schools that are simply aren't working for children and in some cases haven't worked for children for decades. We have to do something different. Do a greater sense of urgency. This past school year, we had a thousand schools in this country, they're just trying to go through the turnaround process and a big regret is the media hasn't covered this because there hasn't been a lot of controversy. This is tough, tough work. It's very difficult. The folks have rolled up their sleeves and done this with great, great courage. And their stories have been largely untold and I think we're going to see some amazing successes. We're going to see some that are going to struggle some more. But for the first time in this country, we're willing to take on this tough work. I can't tell you how important that is.
> You say the media hasn't followed. We followed one of those turnaround schools for a whole year in Richmond, Virginia on our website learningmatters.tv. You can see that story and you can see in effect the hypocrisy of the adults involved. Who--as often happens in education; put adult interests ahead of children. I'm not sure why you're so confident this turnaround process is going to be different.
> I think it is very tough, it is very hard but for the first time, we're taking this on. You know, like I said I think we'll have some amazing successes. We'll see some where we don't--we're not getting better faster. But, John, historically, you had maybe a handful of schools each year that we've turned around. We have a thousand schools. And so, for the first time, we're doing this work. This is going to take--this is not an overnight success. It's going to take two, three, four years. But, I, you know, I've visited a number of turnaround schools this past year. One school had a 60% reduction in violence. You know, it doesn't mean it's perfect. It doesn't mean there's not a long way to go, but that's a pretty remarkable turn--change in one year and they're all kinds of stories like that around the country.
> Charter schools, oftentimes vouchers come up in the conversation. What is your position on school vouchers?
> Yes. I never will support school vouchers. I want great public education in this country. We always say, if a seven-year old doesn't know where to go to a traditional school or a magnet school or a gifted school or a charter school. Do I have great teachers? Do I have a great school?
> But you're against vouchers?
> Absolutely, because it takes money away from the public school system. I think we need to invest much more as a country. We under invest in public education and we have to continue to put more resources in--not in a status quo, but to keep getting better. But where we don't invest, I think, we do a great disservice to our children, to our country and ultimately to our country's economy.
> As for testing and cheating, we've had some one gross scandal in Atlanta and some apparent issues in a number of other places including Washington D.C. and so on. Give me your official reaction to this cheating.
> Well, it's just absolutely unacceptable. And it--ultimately, what happens and what's heartbreaking to me in Atlanta, which is a situation where I think the culture was just morally bankrupt. You have so many young people, so many children who needed additional help, who needed after school, who needed summer, who needed to catch up, who are passed along to. And I think the most important thing we can do as adults is to tell the children the truth. That's why I hate it. I fought so hard against the low standards, the dummied down standards where we were telling children they were proficient and they weren't. And the same thing happens when you--when you lie on a testing situation. I was in Tennessee a week ago, they're like other states, dummied down their standards and they were telling folks, this is fascinating, that 91% of their children were proficient in math, 91%. They then raised standards. Did the courageous thing and it went from 91% proficient to 34% proficient, big drop. And when they did that, they also saw their achievement gaps between white minority students were twice as large as they previously have been reporting because they--because of the artificial scores. And so where we lie to children on low standards, on, you know, phoneying a test, we do--we hurt them and no one goes into education to hurt children. And that's something we just can't accept.