Duncan - The Center of Education

I always kick myself that I haven't learned more about education policy, despite the fact that my mother has taught in public schools for 30 years. I have a broad set of beliefs, that teaching kids to fill in bubbles on a sheet doesn't prepare them for the real world, and that in general our public schools are underfunded, but the granular stuff has always escaped me. So I don't have a whole lot to add about Arne Duncan, the new Secretary of Education, beyond what I'm hearing: he is a pick-up basketball buddy of Barack Obama's, but unlike George Bush, Obama's friends have measurable skills, like being the head of Chicago's school system.

More broadly, Duncan, according to most, represents a balance on the split inside the Democratic Party on education policy, between the reform side of the education equation and the protections for teacher's unions and administrators. He believes in incentives for teacher quality that may rankle the unions, but they view him as someone they can work with. Dana Goldstein has more details on Duncan's role in this split, which is not entirely in the middle.

But although Duncan is being hailed as a compromise between free-market education reformers and teachers' unions, we shouldn't delude ourselves as to the nature of Duncan's relationship with the Chicago Teachers Union. Duncan closed schools (never a popular move), removed teachers from the classroom, and supported charter schools, which now make up about 10 percent of the Chicago system. To get a sense of the grassroots opposition to Duncan, check out the Caucus of Rank and File Teachers and Substance News. Notably, these two groups, critics from the left, believe the Chicago Teachers Union is corrupt and little better than management at representing teachers' and students' needs; on the other hand, a more centrist observer, Alexander Russo, writes that Duncan hasn't been tough enough in his negotiations with the union, and should have done more to attract middle class and affluent families to Chicago's public schools. Russo also snarks that national union chief Randi Weingarten's recent kind words about Duncan's relationship with the CTU could hardly have been made "with a straight face."

Any pick of an actual superintendent to head the Department of Education, as opposed to a governor relatively ignorant of the nitty gritty of education debates, is a move by Obama in the direction of serious, hands-on reform. That's good news, I think, for those of us -- regardless of ideology -- who hope education will become a first tier issue under the Obama administration.

One thing I am cheered by is that Duncan supports early childhood education. It's been documented over and over again that getting your child learning early is a powerful predictor of how successful they will be over their educational career. Early childhood ed is an important anti-poverty program. What's more, if failing schools need to be shuttered, there's a stock of teachers that can be brought into the early childhood programs and maintain their jobs.

In effect, Duncan is a mirror of Obama - seeking consensus, in the center of the debate and hoping to listen to and work with everyone. The Wonk Room has more. And this Malcolm Gladwell article, about educational success and teacher performance, and how you can't necessarily divine one from the other, is worth a read.