Here is a condensed version of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan's comments today to the National Press Club:  (You can read the full speech here. )

In what seems to have become an annual ritual, I’m here again today to report on the state of education in America. What I can tell you after nearly five years in Washington is that the public narrative that you hear inside the Beltway and online doesn’t reflect the reality I see in classrooms and schools all across America.

This town, which so often thinks that it’s somehow the center of the universe, is, instead, an alternative universe.

Here you have some members of Congress who think the federal government has no role in public education—not as a backstop for accountability, not as a partner in enforcing laws and expanding educational opportunity, and not as a supporter of innovation and courage.

Inhabiting this bubble are some armchair pundits who insist that our efforts to improve public education are doomed to fail—either because they believe government is incapable of meaningfully improving education, or because they think education reform can’t possibly work since the real problem with schools is that so many children are poor.

In blogs, books, and tweets, some pundits even say our schools are performing just fine and that fundamental change isn’t needed. Or that we have to address poverty first before schools can improve student achievement.

At the opposite extreme, other commentators declare a permanent state of crisis. They discount the value of great teachers and school leaders, and they call for the most disruptive changes possible, with little heed to their impact on children.

Too many of the inhabitants of this alternative universe are so supremely confident in their perspective that they have stopped listening to people with a different viewpoint.

Instead of talking with each other--and more importantly, actually listening to each other with respect, with humility, and with a genuine interest in finding common ground--many of these people are just talking past each other. They are ignoring plain evidence and deliberately distorting each other’s positions. And they’re clearly not focusing on children and students; they’re focused instead on false debates.

Fortunately, many of the people in the real world outside the Beltway and the blogosphere have tuned out this debate. They are too busy actually getting the real work done. They’re focusing on students—whether they are 3-years- old, 13-years old, or 33-years old.___

All across America, states and districts are moving forward with courageous reforms:

- States have raised standards and expectations for students and are piloting new and better assessments to show what students know and can do;

-Teachers are thinking deeply about their practice and their profession. They’re rewriting curricula and sharing lessons online;

- Technology is driving access to knowledge, innovation, instruction, and professional development in unprecedented ways;

-  And many of our lowest-performing schools are implementing ambitious reforms for the first time to drive improvement and increase student success.

Every state in America is wrestling with complex, real-world questions about education. How to get better faster? How to best serve children at risk and better support teachers? How to transition to higher standards? How to control college costs? And how to expand access to high-quality early childhood education? These states are partnering with the federal government to break free of some of the rules that inhibit innovation and hold themselves accountable to a higher standard.

And they are getting results. Today, high school graduation rates are higher than they have been in more than 30 years. College enrollment is up, particularly among minorities.

From ’07-’08 to 2010, the high school graduation rate among African-Americans increased five percentage points, to 66 percent. In that same period, the graduation rate among Hispanics had jumped eight percentage points, to 71 percent.  These are very encouraging trends.

Partly it’s because we have targeted dropout factories and provided unprecedented federal resources to turn them around, and give young people in historically underserved communities a real shot in life.

Ten years ago, half of African-American high school students and nearly four in 10 Hispanic students attended dropout factories. That’s a staggering statistic—we were actually perpetuating poverty and social failure.

Thanks to the hard work of teachers, parents, community members and students themselves, we’ve cut those proportions in half. There are 700,000 fewer students in those failing schools now than just four years ago.

That is 700,000 students with a better chance of getting a job, owning their own home, supporting a family, and contributing to their communities. We still have a long way to go. But the data and the stories I know directly from students in these schools give me great reason for hope.

We are making real progress, too, for students with disabilities. From 2001 to 2010, the percentage of students with disabilities who graduated with a regular high school diploma increased from 48 percent to nearly 63 percent.

Higher graduation rates also boost enrollment in college. In fact, the Census estimates that Hispanic college enrollment went up 50 percent from 2008 to 2012.

While many other nations outperform us on international tests, a number of states and schools perform on par with the best in the world—offering models of success for others to learn from. There is so much good work underway—and, thankfully, the people doing this difficult, critically important work are not distracted by all the noise and manufactured drama inside the bubble.

Outside the bubble, people are not arguing in 140 characters or less about whether or not we need to fix poverty before we can fix education. That, like so many debates in education, is a false choice.

Of course we will keep fighting poverty—protecting the safety net, providing wraparound services, feeding hungry children and families, creating jobs, combating violence, and providing greater access to health services.

But we can’t use the brutal reality of poverty as a catch-all excuse to avoid responsibility for educating children at risk--and for helping more of them to beat the odds, as thousands and thousands do, year after year.

Our children have only one chance for an education. They can’t wait for poverty to disappear.  In fact, for them and their parents, education is the way out of poverty--and they don’t want to waste a minute. They are chasing the American Dream with everything they have, and we all have to help them get there. We all share in that responsibility—no one gets a pass.

As those of us who have worked in disadvantaged communities know, poor kids need extra long-term support. But educators, nonprofits, and faith-based partners are working together every day to prove that poverty is not destiny.

In the real world, parents just want great public schools for their children. Most don’t really care if it’s a traditional public school, a magnet school, or a charter school. They just want a school that is safe, and that challenges students to excel and makes them feel cared for.

Parents don’t debate if it’s possible to turn around a low-performing school. They can see for themselves if something is working or not working. And they are helping lead these turnaround efforts themselves, with a remarkable sense of vision and purpose.

 Even now, as we speak, Congress hasn’t reached agreement on a spending bill. They’re putting petty politics ahead of governing—and they are hurting our children and our country. They are creating stress and uncertainty for schools and districts in red states and blue states and in every state—and at a time when our schools need stability and investment.

And think of all of the unfinished business in Congress that affects our school children—from comprehensive immigration reform to common-sense gun laws.

If the slaughter of the children and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School didn’t move them, I don’t know what will. In the meantime, mass shootings continue across our nation—in malls and movie theaters; on basketball courts back home in Chicago; and most recently at the Navy Shipyard—all while other nations have chosen to work together to eliminate or sharply reduce the toll of gun violence.

Congress has also failed to carry out its basic, core responsibilities in education. The bedrock laws affecting K-12 education and career education are all long overdue for a rewrite.

In the real world, outside the Washington bubble, schools are just doing what every organization, business, and household in America is doing. They’re getting online and using the infinite resources of the Internet to get smarter faster. Technology can be a hugely important tool as we strive both to increase equity and raise the bar for all students.

Right now our country faces stark choices: We can continue to play politics with the budget and the debt ceiling, or we can fund a federal government that Americans can count on.

Congress can continue to treat education as an expense on the budget ledger, or they can see it as a critical investment in winning the race for the future. Other countries get it--they’re greatly expanding preschool and strengthening teacher preparation.

We can look the other way while policies enrich the few at the expense of the many. Or we can shift resources to programs that can make a difference in the lives of children and families.

We can stand up to the ideologues and extremists in our own parties who promote division. We can all show real courage—and lead, not follow. 

There are plenty of smart, compassionate Republican leaders. There are many GOP governors doing the right thing. They know that education is the right bet for America. But where are the reasonable Republicans in Washington who will stand up to the Tea Party? Who will be that profile in courage?

Who will make it safe for others to do the right thing for their country--and provide all our children with a strong start in preschool? There is nothing political about giving our three-year olds and four-year olds a strong start in life. The silence of our moderate friends almost troubles me more than the noise and nonsense from the extremists.

Similarly, the education community needs to put aside the rhetoric and disrespect and come together to push forward against the one common enemy we must all fight—and that’s academic failure.

The American public is ignoring much of the Washington debate over school reform. They just want schools and educational opportunity to keep improving. They are not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. And they are the reason I remain so hopeful.

I am optimistic and inspired because of what is happening outside the Beltway in schools, at colleges and universities, and in communities all across America. I am optimistic because of teachers and principals I have met, because of parents and community leaders, because of college presidents, and because of governors and state chiefs on both sides of the aisle.

I am optimistic, above all, because of the millions of students who come to school every day. Many face extraordinary barriers and hardships, but they come because they feel safe, they feel engaged, and they feel loved and valued and inspired by their teachers. Our students hunger for the emotional, social, and mental nourishment that comes from a great school.

Public schools can be life-changing places for children. At their best, they embody core American values of ingenuity, creativity, and industry. They advance social mobility and economic opportunity to all.

Public schools offer the hope and promise of a meaningful and rewarding life to every child who walks through their doors. Our job—very simply—is to make schools the best they can be.