den sis president of the nation national education association. thanks so much. as you know, nbc news and all of our networks of nbc have been intensively focusing on the failures in schools and a lot of the anger is directed against the teacher s union. randy wine garten has been out there, you have been as well. it s a larger union and reformers say both inside and outside the administration that you are more resistant to reform even than randy wine garten has been. they have fought for implemented reform efforts for years. all across this country from evansville, indiana, to denver colorado, to seattle, washington. more aggressively when secretary duncan called for something to be done with the lowest performing schools, we call them priority schools. we re partnering in over 120
here it is. you can t defend a status quo in which a third of our kids are dropping out. you can t defend a status quo when you have 2,000 schools across the country that are dropout factories where more than half of the kids are dropping out. in those schools you have to have radical change. what kind of radical change would you suggest or go along with to turn those numbers around, mr. van roekel? i agree with the president that the status quo is not acceptable. what we re doing as a union, the school improvement grants which are aimed and targeted to schools under performing, the ones president obama was talking about, every single one of those schools that receive funds, we re going to include in priority schools campaign. we don t call them high-need schools. we believe they ought to be high priority. we re going to part with them and say, get management, school board, employees and their union at the table. reach out to parents in the community and decide together what are
great public school no matter where they live, no matter who they are. this is the president talking and addressing the dropout rates. here it is. you can t defend a status quo in which a third of our kids are dropping out. you can t defend a status quo when you have 2,000 schools across the country that are dropout factories where more than half of the kids are dropping out. in those schools you have to have radical change. what kind of radical change would you suggest or go along with to turn those numbers around, mr. van roekel? i agree with the president that the status quo is not acceptable. what we re doing as a union, the school improvement grants which are aimed and targeted to schools under performing, the ones president obama was talking about, every single one of those schools that receive funds, we re going to include in priority schools campaign. we don t call them high-need schools. we believe they ought to be high priority. we re going to part with them and say,