By: Stephanie Claytor
During the Senate Confirmation Hearing for the position of the U.S Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, the former CEO of Chicago Public schools, pledged to spread Obama’s example of educational excellence to the nation by rewarding and locating better teachers for the nation’s schools, lowering the high school dropout rate, creating more Early Childhood education opportunities, and making college more affordable.
Duncan worked and tutored in the black community from a very early age with his mother on the south side of Chicago. He met Obama playing basketball pick-up games and shares the same ideology of giving back to the less fortunate. He even spent a year off from Harvard to return to tutor in his mother’s after school program-Sue Duncan’s Children’s Center, which tutors inner city children.
Duncan claims we can’t lower the nation’s percentage of citizens in poverty without bettering our education system.
“Quality education is the civil rights issue of our nation. It’s the only way out of poverty. When we fail to educate our children, we perpetuate poverty,” Duncan said.
Duncan began his speech to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions by using the example of how the Obamas worked hard to get out of the unflattering economical situations they grew up in to become where they are today through education.
“Barack Obama and his wife are two people who embody education. Children around the country look at these two and say they worked hard, I can too,” said Duncan.
Duncan claimed that never before have children around the country viewed being smart as being cool. He claims we must harvest this excitement for education by bettering America’s school systems.
One of his main concerns is lowering the high school dropout rate nationwide. He says during his seven and a half year tenure as CEO of the Chicago Public School System, he helped to lower the graduation dropout rate but he still believes the school system needs drastic improvement.
“Despite statistics, we have extraordinary examples of schools where 95% of students graduate and are going to college. We need to scale up what works and continue to innovate,” said Duncan.
Before Duncan leaves Chicago Public Schools, he proposes to close up to 25 schools in Chicago. He is a big proponent of challenging the status quo and closing or revamping schools that are not performing well.
Arne Duncan never acted as a formal teacher in the classroom but he believes in rewarding teachers who are effective in the classroom.
“If we don’t have great teachers, the rest isn’t as important. Whatever we can do to support great teaching, we support it,” said Duncan.
Duncan hopes to continue the teacher’s incentive fund and also to create a teacher’s advisory council.
Duncan also agrees that great teachers go hand in hand with great leadership.
“Any good school we see there is a good principal,” said Duncan.
While discussing bringing more educated young people to the teaching profession, Senator Harkin (D-IA) asked Arne Duncan about his experience with Teach for America in Chicago.
“We’ve had a great partnership with Teach for America. I helped bring it to Chicago. They have done an extraordinary job of bringing the best and the brightest into teaching,” said Duncan.
To promote and retain more young people in the teaching profession, Duncan hopes schools will provide mentoring programs for young teachers as well as a clear ladder to success. Duncan also believes in alternative certification of teachers. While working for Chicago Public Schools, he brought in over 1200 teachers who were professionals, such as physicists and scientists, who were usually locked out of offering their expertise to the American education system. Also, Duncan wants education students to not only practice theory in college classrooms but to actually live and work in underprivileged communities during their college experience.
Another area of great concern to the Obama Administration is offering more opportunities for early childhood education. Duncan believes that early childhood education is one of the factors that leads to graduation down the road. Duncan discussed his experience visiting Chicago kindergarten classrooms where some students could read and others could not differentiate between the front and the back of a book.
“How do teachers handle the spread in the classroom? We need to make sure that teachers are not babysitting but teaching literacy skills. We need to do something dramatically better for early education,” Duncan said.
The new Secretary of Education hopes to work with the Senate committee and Obama administration to offer more opportunities for early child hood education. Some Senators express interest in expanding public education from K-12 to Pre-K- 12th grade.
Another area of concern for Arne Duncan is college affordability. Duncan said Chicago students received over 100 million in grants and scholarships last year; a number he is proud of. But, he wishes to change the process in which students apply for aid; he believes one of the main hindrances to students obtaining financial aid is the FAFSA form itself. Also he said he will look into how long the Pell grant is offered to college students.
“It is my top priority to make sure that no young person is denied college because of a lack of a loan,” said Duncan.
While working in Chicago, Duncan gave funds to many disadvantaged students so that they could attend college.
Duncan also wants to increase internship opportunities and apprenticeships. Senator Murray (D-WA) hopes Duncan will look into changing the No child left behind law to Every child has a skill we need.
What do you think to be changed in America’s Education System so that our children can succeed?
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