Arne Duncan -- A Wise Choice; A Critical Time

I can't think of a wiser choice than President-elect Obama's selection of Arne Duncan, current CEO of Chicago Public Schools, as Education Secretary. Duncan has a track-record of educational reform successes and he'll use whatever it takes -- innovative charters, teacher reforms, early childhood programs--to ensure higher achievement. Way back when I was Assistant Secretary of Elementary and Secondary Education, and at the initial stages of implementing No Child Left Behind, Duncan was trying to make sense of the law to the benefit of kids in Chicago. He pushed every button he could but, as we now as we know so clearly, the administration wouldn't budge from its ideological perch.

He'll now have a tall order to fill. Certainly the brand will have to be changed, since the No Child Left Behind act has left a bad taste in the public's mind. It's become arguably the most regulated, red-tape infested act in our nation's educational history. Nevertheless, to back off on accountability would be a wrong move. Duncan will have to improve what's gone wrong and move it in a way that benefits schools, teachers, and kids. Further, he's going to have to re-engage people in his department, civil servants committed to education, who were pushed aside for none other than political reasons. It's an enormous challenge but I think he's up to the task.

Comments

[SpeakWithoutInterruption]

Should a concentrated effort be made to recruit - and pay - good teachers? Maybe some funds for scholarships for high school seniors who want to enter the education field?

[JustAnotherJoe]

"It's become arguably the most regulated, red-tape infested act in our nation's educational history. Nevertheless, to back off on accountability would be a wrong move. Duncan will have to improve what's gone wrong and move it in a way that benefits schools, teachers, and kids. "

NCLB is the latest in a long line of unfunded governmental mandates. Until the people who control the purse strings actually fund all of the requirements they levy on the shcools, it will be more of the same. Ususally it trickles down to the classrooms as doing more with less, and like blindjester pointed out, more pressure to pull in high test scores. It's way past time to hold the policy makers and policiticans accountable for failing to properly allocate resources for what they want the schools to accomplish.

Cancel just one weapons program like the F-35 strike fighter ($45 billion spent already, est. $73 million per plane) which was designed to counter a fighter the Russians never built, apply some of that money to education and then we can talk about true reform. What passes for reform these days is window dressing.

[blindjester]

"Duncan has a track-record of educational reform successes and he'll use whatever it takes--innovative charters, teacher reforms, early childhood programs--to ensure higher achievemen­t."

Charters have no record of improving achievement. (Why would they? They're just buildings with classrooms and students and teachers and textbooks. What's innovative about that?) It's just a pretty word for "privatizing" education. Think Blackwater.

And "teacher reforms" is code for "making them do their job!" It's a deficit view of educators that has become the norm for reformers but is incredibly damaging to the great majority of teachers who have always done their job and more. (Anyone who can defend 100% of the people in their own career should take a shot at that.)

At least we can agree on childhood programs.

I hope Duncan ends up supporting teachers. Because trying to extort higher scores from people already doing their best with what they've got is doomed to fail, and it's corrosive to education.