It was an odd feeling, sitting in a room populated more by cameramen and field trip participants than press for Secretary Arne Duncan’s Newsmakers speech at the National Press Club this morning. Perhaps they had heard it all before (he has delivered the same talking points since February). Perhaps it was just a Friday.

The speech - like the Secretary - was friendly, upbeat, likable. It delivered some hard facts, but left you smiling, hopeful.

The approach seems to be to talk and talk about the solutions to come, but never really illustrate the problems (and never deliver details).

I won’t bore you discussing something you can read and watch for yourself, but here are a few notes I found interesting:

More “It’s all about the Benjamins”