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Hi. I’m Arne Duncan. I want to respond to several questions and comments we got via
Facebook. One is from Annie, a fantastic teacher who talked about a fourth grade student she
was working with and who was really struggling. She was trying to find a way to relate better
to him, went to his family farm, saw and found his affinity for animals, got him involved
in 4-H and then all of a sudden school got much better for him.
First, I want to thank Annie, and I want to thank all of the amazing, amazing teachers
around the country for the difference they’re making in students lives every single day.
This is National Teacher Appreciation Week. That should be every week throughout the year,
but this week especially, we want to make sure we know, we’re letting you know, how
much we appreciate what you’re doing for our students. Whether it’s 4-H, whether
it’s robotics, whether it’s chess, whether it’s debate, whether it’s poetry, whether
it’s sports, the arts, whatever it might be, it’s teachers like Annie that find that
gift, that find that genius in every single child and use that as a way to get them more
engaged in school. Generally, that is the exact right way to get every student to fulfill
their tremendous academic and social potential. So I want to thank Annie for taking that initiative
to meet her students more than half way and to thank all the teachers around the country
for the great work they’re doing on behalf of our nation’s children.
Secondly, we received a really thoughtful comment from Anita who talked about the critical
importance of family engagement in helping our students be successful and I want to talk
about a couple of different components of that.
First, family engagement is one of the areas where our Department, frankly, has historically
under invested and in very tough budget times we’re looking to double our funding for
family engagement from about $140 million to $280 million. The great family engagement
programs are never going to be drawn up here in Washington or designed here in Washington,
but we want to invest in great programs at the local level.
Secondly, this one is really personal to me. My wife and I have a third grader and a first
grader at home. We have to be great partners with our student’s teachers. We’re lucky
we have just amazing, amazing teachers, and we’ve got to be with them every single day
helping our children be successful: turning off those TVs at night, reading to our children
and helping them with homework. And, we know parents are struggling today, working one,
and two, and even three jobs trying to make ends meet or out looking for work every single
day. There is nothing more important we can do than to be full and equal partners with
teachers in our children’s education. Parents also have a tremendous say in student attendance
and 90% on a test score is an A but ninety percent attendance is an F. You are missing
ten percent of the days in the average school year. That’s basically a month of school
you’re missing. So, making sure your children are in school every single day, helping them
with homework, getting to know teachers, being a full and equal partners, supporting the
school community, however way you can. When that happens, when families and schools and
teachers and parents are united--with no crack for children to fall between--then our children
are going to be very, very successful.