Arne Duncan talks about stimulus spending, No Child and parental engagement
Editor's Note: Here is a telephone interview that I recently did with Education Secretary Arne Duncan. This excerpt originally ran in Sunday's DMN Points section:
What did spending $100 billion in the stimulus bill on education have to do with stimulating the economy?
We had dual goals: One was to save jobs. We didn't need teachers adding to the unemployment rolls. And we wanted to avoid an education crisis with big layoffs.
Teachers also help stimulate the economy. They do the dry cleaning. They pay mortgages. They buy cars.
The second goal was to use the money to drive reform. I can make a good case that we have seen more reform