Leader of Chicago Schools Is Obama’s Choice for Education Secretary
President-elect Barack Obama has made his pick for U.S. education secretary. His choice is longtime basketball buddy Arne Duncan, who is the chief executive of Chicago Public Schools, a troubled school system that has made notable improvement under Duncan's seven-year tenure. The announcement came today in a joint appearance at Dodge Renaissance Academy, an elementary school in Chicago.
If confirmed, Duncan will almost immediately face the daunting task of rebuilding bipartisan support for a new version of the No Child Left Behind Act, the controversial testing law that seeks to close the achievement gap by 2014. He must also decide how to fund Obama's campaign promises, which included expanding childhood education and investing in high-quality teaching programs, at a time when school districts across the country are cutting back and the education systems of other countries are outperforming America's. Additionally, Duncan will have to grapple with college affordability issues.
Chester E. Finn Jr., who has worked in previous education administrations and currently is president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, praised Obama's selection of Duncan as education secretary. "He's earned his spurs in a huge and challenging school district, is a force for positive change nationally, has navigated Chicago politics, has stood up to Margaret Spellings, and manages with all that to be a thoughtful, affable, and likeable guy."
Duncan's appointment as education secretary comes as two camps in education—reformers and traditionalists—debate how to improve the nation's public schools, which most people agree are not moving fast enough to close the achievement gap and to prepare more students to compete internationally. The debate has grown quite heated in recent years. The most prominent figures in the reform movement include two big-city schools chancellors, Joel Klein in New York and Michelle Rhee in Washington. They, along with others, believe in keeping the focus on testing and accountability in order to improve schools. Among the reforms they favor: ending tenure and paying teachers based on student outcomes. Traditionalists include teacher union leaders and other critics of the NCLB testing law. They want to improve schools by moving away from testing, which they say has narrowed the curricula. They also favor a bigger investment in teacher training.
In recent weeks, rumors swirled that Obama would pick a side in the debate and settle for either a reformer like Klein or a traditionalist like his campaign education adviser, Linda Darling-Hammond. She is a Stanford University professor who has been a strong critic of NCLB. By choosing Duncan, Obama has struck the right balance. Duncan is seen as an acceptable choice by both sides. As the head of the nation's third-largest school system, he has earned a reputation as a reformer without being as polarizing as Klein and Rhee, both of whom have clashed bitterly with unions and parents and were rumored to be on the short list for the job. Duncan appears to listen to all sides, and as a result, he has been able to make sweeping changes that have led to higher test scores and graduation rates. However, Duncan's reforms have not always been popular:He has closed down failing schools and expanded charter schools, backed a gay-friendly high school, and welcomed a program that pays students for good performance.
Duncan's appointment immediately drew praise from the reformers camp. Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, said: "The Obama administration, with Arne Duncan at the head of the Department of Education, will lead the charge of breaking the existing ideological and political gridlock to promote new, innovative, and experimental ideas in education." Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, also seemed to welcome Obama's choice. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, she said, "He actually reaches out and tries to do things in a collaborative way."
Duncan grew up in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago and, like Obama, attended Harvard. The two men have been friends for over a decade and are frequently spotted playing basketball together. Despite their friendship, the Obamas chose not to send their daughters to Chicago public schools. Instead, they enrolled them in the private University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where Duncan went to school as a child. The Obamas have defended their decision to send their daughters to private school, saying they are doing what's best for them. (The Obama girls will attend Sidwell Friends School, a private academy in Washington, in January.) The Chicago Tribune has more on Duncan's tenure as the head of Chicago schools here.
Tags: education | Obama transition | Arne Duncan
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Brandon
I was here.
Education
In the process of doing research on education, with the intent of doing some writing on the topic, I've encountered both concern and criticism. But, in my mind no solution to a real problem facing our nation.
History tells us that money is not the answer. What this retirred educator believes needs to be done is: to restructure the current time based, one teacher one classroom, lock step system to a performance based system that places the responsibility to perform on the learner.
As a start, I might suggest the organization of a school that would allow the learner to utilize his/her individual learning style as he/she progresses through school.
This would require the school to identify what the learner is to learn and indicate how or what the learner will do to prove that he/she has learned that lesson.
Well written performance objectives would change the role of the teacher as well as thzt of the learner. Currently the teacher serves as evaluator, dispenser of facts and information and as the active agent in the learning process. Well written perrformance objectives would result in the teacher becoming a facilitator, motivator, a resource and provider of guidance to the learner. Because the learner would know what is expected his/her role would change from going to school to be taught to going to school to learn and would become the active agent in the learning process.
In the writing of performance objectives let me refer you to the internet and to a 60's era paperback written by Rober Mager, entitled Preparing Instructional Onbjectives. And, for direction a quote from Amos Comenius (1592-1670) seems appropriate:
"There in the world no rock or tower of such height that it cannot be scaled by any man (provided he lack not feet) if ladders are placed in the proper position or steps are cut in the rock, made at the right place, and furnished with railings against the danger of falling over
If we examine ourselves we see that our faculties grow in such a manner that what goes before paves the way for what comes after. (cheating becomes a non-issue)
As for learnin styles, again, let me refer you to the internet. However, the literture identifies three:
1) Visual learniung _ learn by seeing
2) Auditory learning - learn by hearing
3) Kinesthetic Learnbing - learn by doing
I would add a fourth:
4) Learn by (like Socrates) asking questions - personally I would encourage this.
Any questions feel free to ontact me. More than willing 21`give of my time if it's to help our kioda.
Being a British citizen, I don't know a great deal about the American education system, but I know what it's like to be a teacher, having spent the last 20 years teaching. In my opinion no effective educational reform is possible without, first and foremost, a real understanding of the job of the teacher and an acknowledgement of the demands placed upon him/her. Politicians in the UK are constantly reforming the education system, yet none of them has a clue what it actually means for the classroom teacher on the ground. They change syllabuses right, left and center, introduce more tests and exams (and then abolish some), introduce league tables so parents can compare schools more objectively and so on and so on. The results? More stress for the teachers, more stress for the pupils, less time to teach and, therefore, less effective teaching. Everything is geared towards exams, results, being 'better' than someone else or another school - as I have said in a poem entitled 'The Inspection' (part of a collection of poems I've written, called 'It's a Teacher's Life...!'):
Has it been worthwhile?
The politicians would say yes,
but what do they know of education?
Less and less!
To say this school is better than that,
is that the point of all the stress?
Why can't competition be forgot
and cooperation come out on top?
Can you tell me, please tell me, why not?
K Pruitt says that until teachers start teaching the way students are learning, not much is going to change except the frustration level. I would agree with this, but teachers are bound by syllabuses and exams and so they cannot really teach in the way that's best for students (or most fulfilling for themselves). I've had enough of the merry-go-round that calls itself the education system in my country and have stopped teaching. I've come to the conclusion that if teachers and learners are to really enjoy their experience at school and pupils are to learn how to think for themselves rather than just regurgitate facts, then syllabuses and exams should be thrown out of the window, class sizes would be drastically reduced and each pupil would pursue his or her own angle of interest in whatever subject it was, guided and supported by the teacher. As I have said in another poem:
Would that we could create
another indisputable reality
where education delights both
teacher and taught
and restrictions and syllabuses
are but a long, distant memory.
This is the kind of education system I would wish to teach in, but I doubt that any politician - whether in the UK or the US - is either capable or desirous of achieving it in the kind of society we live in today.
Helena Harper
www.helenaharper.com
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