By Alyson Klein
Former U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Wednesday that a big part of the federal role in education is protecting kids from “bad things, and unfortunately we have to do a lot of that.”
“It’s no secret that bullying and harassment is up right now. [President-elect Donald] Trump has, I’m not blaming him, but Trump has unleashed a lot of bad things in our schools that I don’t think we can afford to turn a blind eye to,” Duncan said at a forum at the Brookings Institute on the future of the federal role in K-12 education.
He talked about the efforts of the office for civil rights during the Obama years to stand up for students in special education, English-language learners, students who have been victims of sexual assault, and more.