Washington (CNN) Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday defended his call for a school boycott until gun laws change, telling CNN's Kate Bolduan it "would shock the nation" but that he believes "we need to create tension to compel lawmakers to change."

Duncan, who served under former President Barack Obama, floated the idea of pulling kids out of schools as a way to push for a change to gun laws last week in the aftermath of a fatal school shooting in Santa Fe, Texas.

This is brilliant, and tragically necessary.

What if no children went to school until gun laws changed to keep them safe?

My family is all in if we can do this at scale.

Parents, will you please join us? https://t.co/Yo4wsFuJI5 — Arne Duncan (@arneduncan) May 18, 2018

On Tuesday, Duncan acknowledged that the idea is "radical" and "provocative," but suggested it might be an effective way to shake up the status quo on the issue of gun control.

"I know it would be very difficult," he said. "It's counter to everything I've talked about all my life of trying to get kids to school and to stay in school, but I just think as a nation we're at a breaking point and we just cannot continue to allow our children and our adults to die due to senseless gun violence."

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Duncan went on to say, "what I'm talking about is an idea -- for all the difficultly, for all the impractically about it -- I think would shock the nation, would create the kind of tension that we've lacked, and we need to create tension to compel lawmakers to change."

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