Money Is Not The Reason That People

I Just Think We Can't Do Enough Of This [student Exchanges]... And When You Get Young Children Traveling Internationally, I Think They Come Back Different People. And You Can't Put A Price Tag - You Can't Put A Value On That.

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.

If Children Are Hungry, They Need To Be Fed. It's Hard To Learn If Your Stomach Is Growling. We Need To Take That On. If Students Can't See The Blackboard, Need Eyeglasses, We Need To Do That. If Students Need A Social Worker Or Counselor To Work Through The Challenges They're Facing At Home In The Community, We Need To Do That.

To Be Clear, We The Department Of Education Want Curriculum To Be Driven By The Local Level. We Are By Law Prohibited From Directing Curriculum. We Don't Have A Curriculum Department.

When Schools Truly Become Centers Of The Community, Where You Have Extraordinary Teachers, The Best Teachers, The Best Principals, Great Nonprofit Partners Coming In During The Non-school Hours To Support And Do Enrichment Activities, Social Services, Then Those Students Will Beat The Odds, Will Beat Poverty, Will Beat Violence In The Community, Will Beat Sometimes Dysfunctional Families, And Be Productive Citizens Long Term. They Will Go To College.