next, we have from the department of education, secretary arne duncan. >> thank you so much.rnoon. before i begin, i would like to acknowledge all of the ambassadors again and while we all work together and work for the president, at the end of the day, we work for you guys. to understand that if we are you get an important education -- we're helping you get an education, siu don't do that, we are part of the problem and not part of the solution. usould like for you to hold accountable in whatever we can do to help you be successful. that's what motivates us. i know that i speak for all of indian our visits to country have been our most inspiring visits. i've been to hundreds of schools around the nation and it has been some of the most heartbreaking visits. the reality of what our young people are dealing with, they deserve more from us and we to do a better job. the only way we have strong families, the only way we have strong communities and strong tribes is if we give our children a great education. everything else we do, i don't want to say it is relevant, but it is a ba

and next we have from the department of education, secretary arne duncan. >> thank you so much.oon. before i begin, i just want to, like cecilia, acknowledge all the youth ambassadors again. and while we all work together, we work for cecelia, we work for the president, at the end of the day, i really think we work for you guys. i think it's really important to understand that. if we are helping you get a better education, then we're doing a good job. if we're not helping you build positive futures for yourself, then we're part of the problem, not part of the solution. so i really want you guys to ask the hard questions, to challenge us, to hold us accountable, and whatever we can do to help you be successful. that's why we come to work every single day. that's what motivates us. i'll speak for myself, but i also know i speak for all of us and for the president on this one, our visits to indian country have been both our most inspiring visits, and i have been to hundreds and hundreds of schools around the nation, but also sometimes, quite frankly, some of the most heartbreaking

i said no -- arne duncan open the boxes? if the stuff wasn't in there you couldn't sleep at night. new york city. he was right. deegan know i had read adam smith. i would have slept very badly. it would have been very unlovely to have empty boxes hoping he wouldn't open the mid east that there's nothing in there i forgot, i and so sorry but that is not what i did and not what he assumed and worked out great and when we can trust each other which we do constantly even in our litigious world, even in the world of incredible detailed contracts there are numerous things always left unspecified and as a result we trust, we have certain expectations and we usually meet them about the condition of the equipment and house we sell and how we behave in those situations. that is a glorious thing. it lets us spend a nice time in california, let's me change my camera equipment and lets us interact with people commercially and socially in a wonderful way. where does that come from? why do we have that? we have got into a world where people honored people and i disapproving of dishonorable people

arne duncan, the secretary of edg education, a professor from harvard, civil rights groups and young people in the room that are at the forefront of the ferguson protests. there was a young newly elected official that was present along with d.r.e.a.m. defender philip agnew. a real representation of america and the idea that people want to have these conversations and they aren't comfortable conversations to have. the fact the president not only brought us all together but facilitated the dialogue was incredibly impressive and what a priority it is for him to try to fix this. he recognized he's not going to be able to do this in his term but he'd like to get the conversation going and emphasized the importance of making policy change. you can start changing the current practices. one of the things he emphasized was eric holder was leaving the meeting to go down to atlanta and start a series of conversations around the country. a series of town halls to hear best practices not only from communities of where it's working but also where it's not working. often times these communities wan

secretary of education arne duncan, arguably, the ship's captain, to alter course. >> we think many statesant to take the precious off teachers who are working extraordinarily hard this year. >> reporter: the secretary belatedly offered states one-year reprieve from using common core test scores to evaluate teachers. even states are backing away. of the 45 who started, 14 have thrown common core tests overboard in favor of developing their own. >> many cited the costs of the test. the ultimate goal is to have them being online. that's expensive. you have to have the band width, the computers. a lot are concerned what happens when something goes wrong on test day. the other thing is possible they dropped out of the test because they know if you leave the test you're essentially leaving common core, and if you control your own test, you can set your own proficiency scores again. >> that's makes them nervous. anytime more kids don't meet the proficiency mark, it's a political very difficult position for states. they have to tell people are our kids getting dumber? why are our kids not perform

then education secretary arne duncan, other administration officials on education programs for nativeamericans. >> native-american documentaries which premiered last month. >> 2014 is the first year the annual tribal nations conference has called been native youth to contribute. 40 young adults from indian country were selected to join president obama in washington, d.c. to talk about the issues that matter most to them. these are a few of our stories. ♪ >> my name is jump eagle and i start ad campaign for hope to try to prevent suicide from happening on our reservation and by doing that, i was selected to represent my tribe at the white house tribal nations conference for youth ambassadors. on the reservation the suicide rate is high. last december we had two suicide and i how me and my family felt when we lost my fourth cousin to suicide. sometimes you need people to step up and make a change. and i said i wish all of the sad kids could feel what i feel when i pick this up. i wanted to make one sad kid have a smile on their face. everybody was talking about it. she was kind of like