A Few Reflections Upon Secretary Duncan's Departure
Rather than once again address Arne Duncan's tenure as Secretary of Education, today I'm inclined to offer a couple of more personal musings. After all, while I've often been disappointed by Duncan's Department (and been a thorn in its side), there have been more rewarding moments. I remember Duncan coming to AEI in 2010, a couple weeks after the elections, to give a terrific speech on the "new normal" in education and the need for schools to find ways to do more with less. I recall when Peter Cunningham, Duncan's whip-smart comms chief, was kind enough to invite Andrew Kelly and me over to the Department of Education for a town hall to discuss the lessons about the federal role in education that we took from our 2012 bookCarrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit. I recall fiercely defending Duncan against the inane, childish protest he faced a couple years ago at the American Educational Research Association annual conference . . . and he and I having a good go on the Common Core a couple years ago at the University of Chicago, and a fruitful exchange after.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't know Duncan well. But I first met him more than a decade ago in Chicago, and he has always struck me as wholly committed to serving the nation's students the best way he knows how. I believe that he has always sought to do the right thing for our nation's students. That acknowledgment is important because I'm afraid we've largely lost the ability— in education as elsewhere— to disagree about important questions without doubting one another's integrity and goodwill.
I know that the actions that struck me as counterproductive or even destructive— like federal efforts to push the Common Core or offer "free" community college— struck Duncan as no-brainers. I understand that he thought it would be a betrayal if he didn't do everything he could to push states to do this stuff, and that he saw my concerns about the appropriate federal role, the perils of bureaucratization, or the consequences of rushing half-baked policies into practice as a distraction or an excuse for inaction. I grant his sincerity, even as I profoundly disagree with much that he did. (I do wish Duncan had been equally inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to those who differed with him on questions like pre-K, Title I portability, or Common Core and less prone to denounce them as a morally bankrupt lunatic fringe.)
In fact, there's a larger question here about mutual goodwill. The other week, POLITICO ran anenthusiastic profile of Duncan. I was struck by how many in Duncan's circle truly seemed to believe that he possessed an unprecedented concern for the nation's children. As I observed, "The danger with becoming convinced of one's unique goodness is that it becomes only natural to dismiss those who disagree as insufficiently A Few Reflections Upon Secretary Duncan's Departure :: Frederick M. Hess:
