I’ve got to hand it to you, Arne Duncan
I’ve got to hand it to Arne Duncan.
Today, Dec. 31, is his last day as U.S. education secretary, a job he’s had for seven years. There are few who would dispute that he has been most powerful education secretary in the department’s history, using federal funding and power to get most states to implement the school reforms he thought worthy.
Duncan was highly effective in pushing — critics say coercing — states to adopt the Common Core State Standards, open more charter schools and evaluate teachers by student standardized test scores. But, as time has shown, his reforms were hardly as effective as his ability get them adopted.
He leaves, in fact, with a troubled legacy.
When he first took office in 2009, many had hoped that his Education Department would focus federal education policy on issues such as inequitable school funding and support services for children who live in poverty. Duncan clearly cared about children and wanted to help improve educational opportunities for all, but his narrow policies sparked a revolt by parents, teachers, principals, superintendents, students and others who blamed him for putting unprecedented — and unfair — emphasis on standardized test scores as the chief accountability measure for schools, students and educators.
Duncan’s micromanaging of education issues that had traditionally been left to the states finally propelled Congress to rewrite No Child Left Behind — seven years after the job was supposed to have been done — and to shift some federal power over education back to the states and schools districts.
In his last speech as education secretary, given on Wednesday in Chicago, Duncan said that his “greatest frustration” while he was in office was the failure by Congress to pass gun control legislation. (Not failure to close the achievement gap or failure to ensure equitable funding for all children). My colleague Emma Brown wrote in this story about his speech:
The country could save lives with a new “new deal” for kids, he said, that would provide broad access to preschool and meaningful incentives for great teachers to work in high-poverty schools, as well as mentorship and support for job creation in poor neighborhoods.
He’s not wrong but, again, these aren’t efforts he put at the centerpiece of his reform agenda. While the administration did push universal preschool, it wasn’t until the second term, after billions of dollars had been spent on teacher evaluation and other reforms.
Last October, I ran a post that explained Duncan’s tenure through his own words over the years. Today, on his last day, here it is again:
And so we have to stop lying to children. We have to tell them theI’ve got to hand it to you, Arne Duncan - The Washington Post:
