Duncan Discusses Education Provisions of Stimulus Package

"There is no more immediate way to stimulate the economy--short-term and long-term--than to keep teachers teaching and to keep students learning," Duncan said. "As the bill moves to conference, we must get every dollar possible into America's classrooms."

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan this week made his first visit to a public high school since assuming office and used the occasion to urge swift passage of the stimulus legislation currently being considered by Congress, praising the bill's "historic level of one-time education funding that will not only save or create jobs but also will lay the groundwork for a generation of education reform and progress."

...[I]f we do the right thing, not just for our economy, but for our children, we have a chance to do something absolutely extraordinary. I would call this a historic opportunity, once in a lifetime.

And the stimulus package talks about a couple different things. It talks about saving and creating jobs... there's a huge opportunity to save and preserve and create jobs, and I'm just convinced we have to educate our way to a better economy, that's the only way long-term to get there.

Secondly, we've talked a lot about the capital needs, and ... there's twenty billion dollars for capital for school construction, not just K-12, but higher ed as well, in their bill. Right now, there's zero dollars in the Senate bill. That, to me, is staggering...

And so as this discussion goes into conference, what comes out of that conference is just of staggering importance, and it's so important that all of our leadership here understands that, that all of our students and their parents and the community leaders understand what's really at stake here.

Third, there's a fund that we're calling a "Race to the Top" fund, which is really trying to encourage states and school districts to think about how we compete, not just with students down the block, but how we better compete with children in India and China, 'cause we're really in a global economy today.

And so how can we come up with college-ready, career-ready, internationally-benchmarked standards, how do we come up with the data systems behind that to really track student progress, how do we come up with better assessments, and how do we better recruit and and train and retain great, great teachers...

And ... if we can push this "Race to the Top" fund, we have a chance to transform education in the country. And as a country, we used to be number one in the world. And unfortunately, that's not true today. And you wonder why our economy is struggling--in part, I think it's because we lost our way, at some point, on education. And it's not so much that we're dropping, it's that we're stagnating, we've been flat, and other countries are just passing us by.

And so, with the President's leadership, with a bipartisan Congress that's really committed to education, with support of great, great students and teachers and parents and principals around the country, we have a once in a lifetime historic opportunity to make things better for our children, to stimulate the economy short-term, and long-term to better educate our way to a stronger economy, which is the only way we can do it...

SOURCE: US Office of Education (Video)