arne duncan, the president's secretary of education considers us a role model. the president has said nothing but great things about all of our efforts. are we where we want to be? not even close. are we better off than where we started? yes. my hope is that we'll do some more in the next 2 3/4 years and who comes after us will continue the batle and continue to improve. if you want to know how toolve society's problems, you start out with better public education. weon't have the nor man rock well family typically anymore where there is one breadwinner and one parent at home to say do your homework. the families are not so necessarily stable we can make sure that every kid shows up with a good night's sleep and a meal in his or her stomach. it is a much more complex world than what we had before but we have made progress. i'm encouraged more than ever before. sadly, the budget realities of a downturn in the economy mean that we have to downsize every agency, education, we, in order to downsize its share, last nomber wwould have had to lay off a boufrpbl teachers

. >> smith: we went to talk to president obama's new secretary of education, arne duncan, to get hisake on the for-profits. >> i don't think there's anything inherently wrong with a for-profit educating students where they are providing them with a great education, where they're being honest about it, where there's value for the investment, and long term you want to see those players do well. but, where there is high-pressure tactics, where there are deceptive tactics, where there is dishonesty, we have to challenge that in a very serious way. >> smith: the government has been involved in a number of lawsuits in recent years. one of the biggest was against the university of phoenix and dealt with a rule concerning something called "incentivized compensation." it stipulates that schools cannot pay enrollment counselors based solely on the number of students they recruit. >> the concern is that they are bringing in students who can't succeed or graduate just so the recruiter can make more money. if you're paid based on how many people you enroll, you'll enroll pretty much anybody. >> s

plus, our midweek "press pass" conversation this week will be with education secretary arne duncan, whobout education reform efforts and the kickoff of nbc's "education nation on the road" making its first stop next weekend in the secretary's hometown of chicago. check your website and the "press pass" blog midweek for the full interview with secretary duncan. let's go, cats, on to the [ man ] i've seen beautiful things. ♪ i've seen the sunrise paint the desert. witnessed snowfall on the first day of spring. ♪ but the most beautiful thing i've ever seen was the image on a screen that helped our doctor see my wife's cancer was treatable. [ male announcer ] ge technologies help doctors detect cancer early so they can save more lives. bringing better health to more people. ♪ ears? bringing better health to more people. aside from laser guns and time travel, the first plastic water bottle ever made will finally decompose. so reuse. recycle. you can save the future... the more you know. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com

they are working with arne duncan on that. we are setting a cap on discretionary spending. it is up to the committee to prioritize it. he did not get down to the mike carona specifics. we said the cap. then congress passed to prioritize that. of this is an area where the government is more deeply involved. only 6 cents on the dollar comes from the federal government. it is the constitutional responsibility of the states. we have 49 different job training problems. none of them are measured. we do not know that they are working to get people into work ancare rears. we are trying to do it consolidation. that is where we spend a lot of the time and education. that is more of a federal responsibility. >> reduce spoke about taxes. what can you tell us about what the ways and can means -- ways and means committee is likely to do? >> the tax reform was given to me by the member. we were closely together. what he is planning on doing is broadening the tax base, lowering the rate to a condensed shropshire. it when you broaden the base, you have to get rid osome loopholes. we will fi

they are working with arne duncan on that. we are setting a cap on discretionary spending. it is up tohe committee to prioritize it. he did not get down to the mike carona specifics. we said the cap. then congress passed to prioritize that. of this is an area where the government is more deeply involved. only 6 cents on the dollar comes from the federal government. it is the constitutional responsibility of the states. we have 49 different job training problems. none of them are measured. we do not know that they are working to get people into work and care rears. we are trying to do it consolidation. that is where we spend a lot of the time and education. that is more of a federal responsibility. >> reduce spoke about taxes. what can you tell us about what the ways and can means -- ways and means committee is likely to do? >> the tax reform was given to me by the member. we were closely together. what he is planning on doing is broadening the tax base, loring the rate to a condensed shropshire. it when you broaden the base, you have to get rid of some loopholes. we will fi

for example secretary arne duncan and 150 districts where there superintendents, school board presidents and their union president came together to talk about how to replicate those principals from very progressive contracts that drive student achievement across the country. it is about taking the positive success we have seen clear unions and administrators and parents and community and policymakers are coming together to do what is right for kids and helping to replicate those and support leaders everywhere trying to do the same thing. >> reverend al are unions a problem? >> i i don't think unions are a problem. we wanted to see accountability and of late i have seen some very serious moves in terms of unions on how to deal with that. the president of the american federation of teachers did a tour, and she has even made some very progressive recommendations on how you deal with tenure and where there must be accountability you can't have a situation set up where teachers are not judged on their performance. there is no accountability. the nea spoke about it last week. so i think unions

they are working with arne duncan on that. we are setting a cap on discretionary spending.t is up to the committee to prioritize it. he did not get down to the mike carona specifics. we said the cap. then congress passed to prioritize that. of this is an area where the government is more deeply involved. only 6 cents on the dollar comes from the federal government. it is the constitutional responsibility of the states. we have 49 different job training problems. none of them are measured. we do not know that they are working to get people into work and care rears. we are trying to do it consolidation. that is where we spend a lot of the time and education. that is more of a federal responsibility. >> reduce spoke about taxes. what can you tell us about what the ways and can means -- ways and means committee is likely to do? >> the tax reform was given to me by the member. we were closely together. what he is planning on doing is broadening the tax base, lowering the rate to a condensed shropshire. it when you broaden the base, you have to get rid of some loopholes. we will

for example secretary arne duncan and 150 districts where there superintendents, school board presidents and their union president came together to talk about how to replicate those principals from very progressive contracts that drive student achievement across the country. it is about taking the positive success we have seen clear unions and administrators and parents and community and policymakers are coming together to do what is right for kids and helping to replicate those and support leaders everywhere trying to do the same thing. >> reverend al are unions a problem? >> i i don't think unions are a problem. we wanted to see accountability and of late i have seen some very serious moves in terms of unions on how to deal with that. the president of the american federation of teachers did a tour, and she has even made some very progressive recommendations on how you deal with tenure and where there must be accountability you can't have a situation set up where teachers are not judged on their performance. there is no accountability. the nea spoke about it last week. so i think unions

but they're working with arne duncan on that. with respect to discretionary funds, we are setting a cap on discrer -- discretionary spending and it's up to the appropriations committee to prioritize spending underneath that. you don't get down to the microspecifics underneath those spending caps. we set the basic financial architecture in the cap and then congress for the appropriations process has to prioritize underneath that. we do, where do i talk about education, which is an area where the federal government is more deeply involved, remember, only six cents on the dollar for k through 12 education comes from the federal government. all the rest of it is local and state government. it's really the constitutional responsibility of the states and the funding mostly comes from the states. but on post secondary education we got 49 different job training programs spread across nine different government agencies. none of them are measured, they don't have metrics, dewe don't know if they're working to succeed to get people into wor

and then the duncan, secretary of education -- arn inch e, he spoke a little bit and it was nice to hear him say, talk about a lot of things we are doing nationally. he talked about parent engagement and supporting early childhood education. the other thing i heard him talk about is that you know how we are trying to address chronic absenteism and he said it is a problem when kids don't go to school. the reauthorization we have been talking about reauthorizing that for the last two years, three years. and it seems they are going to try to come up with something before may -- the end of may, i guess and everybody was saying the same thing. so i'm taking it pretty serious. so pay attention to our reps at the federal level when they ask for our help because they will move quickly once they get focused on this. as you already know the budget doesn't look that great for us. even though president obama said he wants to support education and if it were passing his budget, it would be supporting education, but the house passed a bill that basically did away with all his priorities. so there was

hobbling students across this country the kind of collaboration's we're seeing in play, secretary arne duncan and 850 districts, presidents and union presidents came together to talk about how to replicate those principles from the very progressive contracts that drive student achievement across the country is about taking the success we have seen where unions and administrators and parents and community and policy makers are coming together to do what is right for kids and helping to replicate those and support leaders everywhere try to do the same thing. >> reverend al, are in unions the problem? >> we wanted to see accountability. lately i have seen some very serious moves in terms of unions on how to deal with that. the president of the american federation of teachers t did aa tour. there must be accountability, you cannot have this situation set up where teachers are not judged on the performance. there's no accountability. unions are beginning to adjust to a climate that some of those of us that have tried to a policy, and i have worked with others on this around the country. we have be