Educational Leaders: Arne Duncan

This post covers Arne Duncan. You may want to read the introduction to the series; this is the fourth and final educational leader explored.

Education is the only path to the American Dream. -Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan wants to think differently education, past the status quo. He believes all Americans must too for significant educational change. For instance, he has a plan to move American schools away from the agrarian calendar and to the focus of communities. By keeping schools open 12-14 hours a day, 6-7 days a week and 12 months a year, Duncan hopes to catch schools up with America's fast-paced culture.

The stimulus bill has given an enormous opportunity for education, in part because of teacher pay. Duncan believes teachers are the most important element in a child's education, but are not the sole factors in their success. He wants to focus on recruitment of the best and then provide them with mentoring and support. He wants to reward the stars by tying part of teacher payment to students' test score. Furthermore, when a school does well, Duncan thinks all school employees (even the janitors) deserve compensation.

Current Job
United States Secretary of Education.
Accomplishments

• Duncan is the previous CEO of Chicago Public Schools. He grew early childhood education by using federal, state and local money. He changed the cultural mindset, increased AP classes and the number of students who passed them and closed schools with a record of chronic failure.


• Race To The Top is Duncan's signature initiative. Under the guidelines, states seeking funds will be pressed to implement four core, interconnected reforms.

Criticisms

• Duncan is a "big fan of charter schools" because he supports any school that is a good school. Many criticize charter schools because they take money away from public schools.


• He believes in tying part of teachers' pay to students' performances on standardized testing. Many educators debate linking teacher salary to students' standardized testing scores.


• Duncan thinks that students' foundations must be cared for before they can learn, such as health and nutrition. In Chicago, his schools fed students three meals a day and got them eyeglasses. Some citizens believe he stepped away of his duty in education and into parents' responsibilities.

Americans typically agree with most of Arne Duncan's ideas, like that large investments should be in early education and that teacher recruitment is important. His ideas concerning reform are where citizens disagree. When Duncan signed on with the current administration, he had experience and ideas. Now he has the financial support to make these drastic changes in education. It is the average American citizen's job to assure that Duncan makes implementations that he and she want. To do so, we must become educated citizens on the subject of education.

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