As Congress moves to strip his power, Duncan is staying until the final buzzer
Christina Waters’s cellphone rang, and she looked down to see that the number was blocked. She knew immediately it was U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, just calling to check in.
It has been that way since Waters attended a 2009 church picnic in Chicago and came away with a bullet lodged in her head from stray gunfire. She suffered hearing loss in one ear, and her college dreams were delayed. But she pushed forward, with encouragement from Duncan, who has known her since elementary school. Now 24, Waters is studying kinesiology at Sam Houston State University in Texas.
Waters belongs to a circle of strivers that Duncan has quietly cultivated, students across the country who are clearing hurdles that would discourage many others. He calls regularly to offer support and advice.
That unfiltered, direct contact has been key in shaping Duncan’s belief that poor students hold the same potential as their affluent peers but face more obstacles to a high-quality education in America’s public schools. Trying to correct that imbalance, Duncan has injected an unusual amount of federal influence into traditionally local decisions about public education.
The result is that most Americans now accept public charter schools as an alternative to neighborhood schools, most teachers expect to be judged in some measure on how well their students perform on standardized tests, and most states are using more demanding K-12 As Congress moves to strip his power, Duncan is staying until the final buzzer - The Washington Post:
