Let's just say for example, instead of 13,000 police officers we had 8,000, but we had 5,000 more outreach workers, clinicians, life coaches, educators, job developers who are stopping the violence, we've got to give them a reason to stop committing crimes and put down the guns.

Arne Duncan

This is a devastating problem, is, the longer our children are in school, the worse they do. Year after year after year, our children in America are falling further behind. Our 3- and 4-year-olds enter kindergarten OK, and they fall further and further behind. Each year, children in other countries are learning more than children in this country. And so the gap between American student performance in Singapore and Finland and South Korea and Canada and these other countries, the gap widens year after year after year.

Arne Duncan

country children fall

Almost 24 million children - one in three - are likely growing up without their father involved in their lives.

Arne Duncan

growing-up father children

Historically the Department of Education hasn't been doing enough to drive the sustainability movement, and today, I promise that we will be a committed partner in the national effort to build a more environmentally literate and responsible society.

Arne Duncan

effort energy promise

Schools and districts and unions are working together on some really innovative things.

Arne Duncan

unions working-together school

Other countries have outeducated us. They have made this a priority. And a big part of what I'm trying to do, frankly, is raise the profile of education and get America to wake up.

Arne Duncan

priorities trying country

Hungry children are distracted children. We want to make sure nothing gets in the way of our children performing well academically, including hunger.

Arne Duncan

want children way

Money is not the reason that people enter teaching.

Arne Duncan

teaching reason people

Even in a time of fiscal austerity, education is more than just an expense.

Arne Duncan

expenses austerity

Teachers say their schools of education did not adequately prepare them for the classroom. They would have welcomed more mentoring and feedback in their early years.

Arne Duncan

teacher years school

State governments generate less revenue in a recession. As state leaders struggle to make up for lost revenue, legislatures tend to cut funding for higher education. Colleges, in turn, answer these funding cuts with tuition hikes.

Arne Duncan

cutting college struggle

Surveys show that many talented and committed young people are reluctant to enter teaching for the long haul because they think the profession is low-paying and not prestigious enough.

Arne Duncan

teaching long thinking

We all have a role to play - the President, Congress, parents, students and schools - in making college affordable and keeping the middle class dream alive.

Arne Duncan

college dream school

No one is mandating merit pay.

Arne Duncan

merit pay

Far too many of our children today, our students, need remedial education. We have been lying to them. They're not really ready for college. That's not higher education's fault. That's our fault K-12.

Arne Duncan

college lying children

City Year is taking on some of the toughest work in education.

Arne Duncan

cities years

We have had this massive effort on K-12 reform, raising standards, great teachers, great principals, turning around chronically failing schools, raising the bar, huge amount of progress. Let's continue that.

Arne Duncan

effort teacher school

I'm just absolutely convinced we have to educate our way to a better economy. That's the only way we're going to get there. This is the best long-term investment we can make. And so I think it's my job to be the truth-teller.

Arne Duncan

investment economy thinking

Whether you look at these recent PISA results, which we are mediocre at best, whether you look at a 25 percent dropout rate in this country, whether you look at, in one generation, we're not doing what we need to be doing to keep America great.

Arne Duncan

rate mediocre country

What I've said is if we looked at this early in September.

Arne Duncan

politics

So instead of watching TV, we read every night together as a family.

Arne Duncan

watching family together night