Were going to continue to challenge states to hold universities accountability. Were going to get much more information out to young people and their families to make good choices. We hope theyll go places that are not just serious about creating access, but about completion. Theres a number of things were going to do to help people make choices and to get more resources to places that are doing the right thing by their young people. This questioner suggests that the administration has pulled back a little bit on that effort to evaluate and rate colleges and universities wondering if the administration was bowing to from Higher Education institutions or what happened there. We can be accused of lots of things. It was an interesting process that was we learned as we were going through it. Its almost like an old school versus newschool approach and the idea of having a federal government do an annual report card and come out with a seal of approval, that used to maybe make some sense. It doesnt make much sense anymore. Data is changing so fast. Theres so much information out there. We think the best thing we can do is maximize transparency. Let folks do their own data in realtime analyses. Get that information out. We think thats the way the world is moving, so this was a different way of doing business than us. But the idea of a onetime seal of approval doesnt quite make sense anymore. It would be interesting to see the number of folks coming to that site has been stunning. Were going to try to do a lot more going forward. This is just the starting point. Maximizing transparency, maximizing data. We think that will drive behavior and provide a level of accountability that a static report card wouldnt. We must have some educators writining essay questions. Yesterday, a Bipartisan Group of governors and education groups told members of congress to do their jobs and reauthorize the elementary and secondary education act or esea and they released conference priorities for negotiating a final bill. Those priorities are silent on the role of standardized tests and measuring whether students have mastered state standards. How do you think we should update the accountability regime introduced by no child lift behind . That is a very difficult question. We think where states and districts are overtesting, wheres there redundancy, they should cut back. We would love to see a cap on annual testing. Put some money behind places that want to do that the right way. We think theres an Important Role for assessing Students Learning every single year. We need to know not just in ninth grade and 11th grade are students are track to be ready for college or not. Take one second on this. Massachusetts is our highest performing state academically. Theyre number one. Despite that fact, about 1 3 of their High School Graduates who go on to two and fouryear universities have to take remedial classes in college. That means theyre not ready. Having high standards and having honest assessments of students ability to hit those standards, we think theres a common sense middle ground there. Thats a very important piece, but thats one piece of a potential fix to the no child left behind law. That law has been broken for a long time. Unfortunately, congress has also been broken. We are hoping a couple of years ago congress would fix the law. Were hoping now. Having Speaker Boehner step down before that happened, we were maybe 50 50. I think our odds of having it pass now have gotten worse but not better, but i would be very happy to be proven wrong there. The goal is to get a strong bill, a bipartisan bill, that would fix the law for children, fix the law for educators, and the president could be proud to support. I hope we can get there. I think that task, that journey, just got harder in the past week. With so many states opting out of testing, will the u. S. Education department continue to insist that new york state continue to consider student test scores in evaluating teachers and if so, how much weight should be given to test scores . First to be clear, no states are opting out of testing. Every state assesses student. No state has opted out. All we have tried to do and theres a level of complexity and detail here is to say Student Learning has to be a part of evaluating teachers. Anyone who says that somehow teacher evaluate and Student Learning should be divorced from each other i think really demeans the profession of teaching and the goal of Great Teachers is not just to teach, but to have their students learn. How are you measuring Student Learning and how is that just a piece of how you evaluate teachers . We say multiple measures. Anyone who says were only interested in test scores is not telling the truth. This questioner asks arent teachers forming unions still the best way to raise teachers salaries and do you think charter operators should remain neutral during union drives . I think unions are an important way of raising wages, whether it is in the Education Sector or in others. But i also want to be clear. Hopefully it was very implicit in what ive said is that every teaching job is not created equally. And we have a teacher that we have here. Thats a very different job than teaching in northwest d. C. In chicago, a teacher teaching in en inglewood is a very diffet job. We would love to find ways again, no one goes into education to make a million dollars. Teachers are the most altruistic people we know, but how we better compensate them, how we better support them, how we get them more respect, and how we get great talent to the kids who need the most help the most extreme example i saw was on a native american reservation and no child deserves a better chance or a real chance at an education than our native American Children where they could simply not find enough teachers to teach in that community. Half of their teachers came from teach in america and half came from the philippines. They could not find u. S. Born teachers to work on that reservation. As part of a package to get more talent where we need it most, i think compensation and other things have to be on the table in very, very different ways. Again, there are Great Schools that are led by union teachers. There are not Great Schools led by union teachers. There are Great Schools on the other side of that as well. Whether a charter is a union school or not, i think is irrelevant. What are we doing to increase graduation rates, reduce dropout rates . We need to support teachers. We need to support educators. We need to compensate them. All of this needs to be about reducing academic failure and increasing success. What should common core advocates be doing to make sure that state standards dont revert back to the old system inconsistent from state to state . Again, the media loves the noise and the controversy, but over the past couple of years something unprecedented happen. The overwhelmingly majority of states decided were going to stop dumbing down standards and stop lying. What those standards are called doesnt matter, but the goal is to keep those standards high. What the press hasnt covered is how many states have high standards relative to a couple of years ago. This has been talked about educators and by governors since the 90s. Governor clinton worked on this. Governor riley worked on this. What we have seen is political leaders from across the political spectrum, democrat and republican, are now in the process of raising standards. Thats a huge deal. That by itself is not enough. How you support teachers and teaching those Higher Standards, how you talk about Higher Standards for children, this is going to be a rocky couple of years. Test scores may go down. Thats okay. Its important to tell the truth. Its important to have high standards. The second part of that question is how do we have transparency and look at one state versus the other. Were not competing for jobs in the state of indiana anymore by itself. Were competing with jobs with singapore and south korea and china. Who is Getting Better faster . Were all in this together. Who is doing a better job in inner city communities . Who is doing a better job in Rural Communities or on native American Reservations . If we cant compare or talk to each other, it is hard to shine a spotlight on success. We have to find ways to get better faster. For every educational challenge were facing, i promise you it is being solved somewhere today with educators. Being able to measure and talk and communicate across the nation and across the globe, i think, will speed up, will accelerate the pace of change, which i think we desperately need to do. A couple of similar questions ill combine. One asking how the department of education can be proactive to make sure what happened in ferguson and baltimore doesnt happen again. I know thats part of what your speech was about today. Another questioner says the department has already issued civil rights guidelines for schools. Is there anything else the administration can or will do to offset the racial bias that fuels the school to prison pipeline . First, ill tell you what we cannot do. I always try to be very honest. On the k12 side, our nation is funded at the local level. Usually half is from the state. 40 is the local level. Our levers there as not as strong as some might like them to be, but the fact of the matter is since were so property taxbased throughout the nation, the children of the wealthy get dramatically more spent on them than the children of the poor. Until we become uncomfortable with that truth, until we really start to believe that black and brown children and poor children actually can contribute to society, well continue to have huge disparities. Im not an expert. I spent some time in ferguson, but ferguson didnt happen overnight. That was decades of neglect and abuse and mistreatment and underinvestment. Decades in the making and it finally, finally boiled up to the top. As long as children in ferguson are getting less than half the money spent of them, were going to leave a lot of talent on the sidelines and were going to lock up people coming from communities like that that we dont have to do. Until we become uncomfortable with this reality, until we challenge it, not talk about it, not admire it, but do Something Different well continue to have huge disparities in educational funding. It is impossible to justify children of poor communities getting half the money of children of wealthier communities. 85 of our children lived below the poverty line. 90 of our children came from the minority community. We sued the state. When unsuccessful, but its criminal. Its criminal that our kids and the children we serve have less than half the money. Think about the 13year impact of having much less resources than other spaces. Thats going to happen much more at the local level. It has to happen at the federal level. What we can continue to do is try to put out guidance and spotlight leaders of courage. As we challenge everyone else, i want you to come back to this. We have to look in the mirror and challenge ourselves. That has to be a piece of this. Where we are doing things that are contributing to these problems, we have to make ourselves vulnerable. We have to ask the very hard questions and try and do Something Different. That meeting with the police, i will never forget that meeting. It was like it was yesterday. I was stunned, stunned, that we were contributing to this problem in a major way, but that was reality. Two years ago, we announced with eric holder that across the nation we were suspending and expelling 3 and 4yearold black and brown boys from prek. I had no idea. We have to continue to shine spotlights on leadership and courage. We have to continue to put out guidance. We have to challenge local folks to think is it good enough that the children of ferguson have less than half the money spent on folks like them. You have a reputation of being able to work with people of all ideologies, yet the past seven years the debate over education has become more divisive than ever. Why do you think that is . I dont think i agree with that characterization. What folks like to cover is the noise. The vast majority of states have raised standards. They dont cover that 43, 44 states are the top gets all of the press, 4 million. We invested 5 billion more in turning around the nations under performing schools. People said that was hard, impossible, cant happened, black and brown kids cant learn. Weve seen huge progress. That story has been massively unreported. The media is drawn to the noise and controversy. The media does not go to collaboration. And theres an extraordinary story just underneath the surface that lots of media folks here, im trying to throw a not so subtle hint here. Theres extraordinary stories. I just went on a back to school bus tour, traveled throughout the midwest. Was in cedar rapids, idaho. Theyve thrown out traditional teacher contracts and step increases, putting all of their money in teacher leadership and investing in teachers. Its virtually unheard of. 15,000 School Districts. Well be lucky if we have 100 School Districts doing that. No one tells that story. Amazing collaboration. Nobody knows. So i think again, theres an important debate to be had. Thats a great debate to be head. Not to go on too long on this, i think what we debate is important. So much of what we debate is small ball. With the president ial campaign coming up, a few basic questions they would love the media to ask. One, what are you doing to increase investment in Early Childhood education. Two, what are you doing to reduce dropout rates. Three, whats your plan to increase High School Graduation rates. And not just what your goals are, what political capital, a what resources and investment are you willing to make. And all of the other questions are noise. Its silly. Everything else, all means to an end. If we can get folks focused on those and have an honest debate amongst all of the candidates, then we should vote on those things. Because we focus on the silly stuff and the noise, it gives politicians a pass to deal with the real hard issues. And i dont blame them. I blame us as voters. Thats on us. You mentioned questions youd like to ask the candidates. In the three hours of the lst republican president ial debate, nothing was said about education. It doesnt seem to be a priority issue in the election. Why do you think its not being talked about on the campaign trail. Again, i dont blame the politicians. I blame us. It wasnt in the 2012 president ial debates, education barely came up. Things get discussed on what folks vote on. Until more folks go to the voting booth voting on education, these topics arent going to be talked about. Again, im repeating myself. Democrat, republican, doesnt matter. Lots of great education ideas along the political spectrum. But until we insist that mayors and governors and congress folks, folks in the senate and folks running for president , until we insist that they dont just kiss babies and actually try and improve education, then well continue to just sort of not make the kind of progress we need. And the consequences from our country are getting bigger and bigger. Not to go on too long. Our nation now, our nations Public Schools are majority minority. Majority minority. A watershed moment in our nations history. Were not going back the other way. This isnt the right thing to do for the black community or the hispanic community, this is the right thing to do for our country. If we continue to leave the talent on the sidelines, we will not be competitive in other nations who believe in every single child and giving them a chance. Theres a sense of urgency, flat world competing for high school jobs. The only way were going to keep the middle wage jobs is to keep the graduates. If were all fighting to get there, lets have a healthy debate about what the best strategies are to do that. Were not at that point yet. Were debating silly stuff. Its a distraction. Its counter productive. Before i ask the final question, i have some hou housekeepi housekeeping. The National Press club is the worlds leading professional organization for journalists and we fight for a free press worldwide. To learn more about the club visit our website press. Org and to donate, visit press. Org institute. I also want to remind you about some upcoming lunch programs. Tomorrow, october 1st, the president will address the club. On friday, utah governor, chair of the National Governors association will address the luncheon. And on october 7th, Baltimore MayorStephanie Rawlings blake will address the National Press club. I would now like to present our speaker with the cherished National Press club mug. I know youve been here before so youre developing a collection. Thank you so much. They look great in a set of four in the china cabinet. Final question. w you were confirmed in 2009. Youre one of two cabinet secretaries left. We can see the end out there. Is it safe to say youre going to stick around until they turn the lights off on the administration . Working hard every day and we have an amazing team. And the amount of Unfinished Business and the president has talked about the Fourth Quarter and were proud of the progress weve made. But theres so much work we need to do, not just for the next 14 months but for the next 14 years as a nation. Its incumbent upon all of us to work hard and give our kids a chance. Thank you for having me. One more you were the longest serving heads of Chicago Schools and now one of the longest serving secretaries of education. When you do step away, what do you envision next for yourself . I have n