U.S. Secretary Arne Duncan urged colleges to “keep down their costs” at a panel discussion at AU on March 2.
Duncan joined New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to discuss the education reform needed to ensure national economic prosperity.
“We’re trying to walk the walk in very tough economic times … but we can’t do it by ourselves,” Duncan said.
The panel, organized by the U.S. Department of Education, took place in the Abramson Recital Hall.
Other speakers included:
• NYC Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott,
• Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard,
• L.A. Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy
• MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who moderated.
Villaraigosa commended President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he said he wanted all Americans to commit to one year of higher education.
The panelists agreed that any form of post-secondary education should allow students to get a job.
About 5 percent of college graduates are unemployed, according to the 2011 U.S. Census Bureau. Comparatively, one-third of those with only high school degrees were unemployed in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Emanuel said only a four-year college degree will truly help people find jobs in today’s economy. Even a two-year community college degree “does not have the economic value that [a degree from] a four-year institution does,” he said.
The mayors also urged school districts to focus on teaching children, fight education bureaucracy and ensure “accountability” from administrators
“We’re going to educate our way to a better economy or we’re going to struggle,” Duncan said. “We’re at a fork in the roads right now.”
Panelists said parents need to focus more on their children’s education to promote education reform despite bureaucratic obstacles.
“A lot of times, when this discussion takes place, when the battle takes place, it’s always about the adults,” Walcott said.
Emanuel echoed that sentiment, saying the Chicago schools are “a system [that] was set up for the parents, without any of the kids in mind.”
Chicago public schools are in session 3,000 hours less per year than L.A. schools and 8,000 hours less than NYC schools, Emanuel said.
The other key aspect of education reform is focusing on teachers, panelists said. Bloomberg said that, if teachers aren’t doing their jobs, they need to be removed at any cost.
“The conventional way that government works is we throw money at all problems,” Bloomberg said. “In the end, education is about a teacher looking a kid face-to-face. And so, if you care about the quality of education, you have to care about the quality of the teacher.”
Duncan defended the Obama administration’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top program, started in 2009 to enact education reform through states, according to a Department of Education.
“We actually think there has been an over-emphasis on testing under No Child Left Behind,” he said, referring to President George W. Bush’s education reform.
But Bloomberg did defend testing, saying it provides a measure to see if children are learning what they need to learn to succeed.
“We have a saying that, ‘In god we trust, everybody else has to bring data,’” he said. “Teaching for the test is exactly what we should do as long as the test reflects what we want them to learn.”
