Duncan’s second term?
As soon as a week after the presidential elections Duncan implied he was going to stay. His words were clear: “Let me, first, sketch the outlines, or provide a mini-preview, of a second-term education agenda”.
Bringing classroom learning into the 21st century
Arne Duncan is a great education reformer, many observers ackowledge. In 2009 Race to the Top was started, inspiring dramatic education reform. This act led 46 states to pursue higher standards and it stimulated data driven decisions making. This resulted in greater support for teachers, and improvements in persistently low-performing schools.
In 2012 Duncan started a new Race to the Top competition that aimed directly at the classroom level, supplying teachers with strategies and tools to help every student to learn at its own pace. “With this competition, we are inviting districts to show us how they can personalize education for a set of students in their schools. We need to take classroom learning beyond a one-size-fits-all model and bring it into the 21st century,” he said.
Controversial policy
Duncan’s first term has been marked by several discords with teachers and their unions. Especially the plans to fire teachers based on merit instead of seniority were not welcomed by the unions. On the other hand, Obama’s administration spent billions on teachers hiring as part of the stimulus bill, which stopped the trend of increasing class sizes.
Even more controversial is the No Child Left Behind act that was inherited from the Bush administration. This act requires every student to be proficient in science and math by 2014, however several states will not able to achieve this. To create a way out for states that could not meet the requirements a waiver program was developed by Arne Duncan.
In this waiver program states could apply for alternative education standards that are “tight on goals and loose on the means for achieving those goals”. This provided states with a way out of a decade-long policy that focused on holding schools accountable but labeled many of them failures even if they made progress.
Lacking both a stick and a carrot?
Duncan said he has an “ambitious” second-term agenda that includes holding the line on initiatives he started during his first four years. He cited specifically the tough road ahead for common standards, common tests, and teacher evaluations. “Do we have the courage to stay the course there?” Duncan asked. His second term will have an extra focus on teacher and principal quality, because teacher education programs are believed to be a “part of the problem”.
Beth Hawkins, a teaching specialist from Learning Curve doesn’t see many new plans for Duncan’s second term. “Nor is there any more of the federal stimulus money that Duncan used to induce cash-strapped states to adopt some of his policy prescriptions in the first term”. Hawking believes that Duncan is “lacking both a stick and a carrot” in the coming four years.
Praise instead of competition
Although it seems not very likely that Arne Duncan will be replaced, the name of Michelle Rhee buzzed around in Washington as a candidate. However Michelle Rhee does not seem very willing to replace Duncan: “The signaling by Secretary Duncan that he will continue for another term is an enormous win for children. He deserves credit for keeping a focus on accountability while allowing for flexibility and innovation. But there’s a lot of work to be done now to ensure high standards and accountability are preserved in No Child Left Behind waivers and reform, as well as administering Race to the Top grants to strapped districts, especially with federal budget cuts looming.”
Although there is enough work to be done nationally, it is pretty sure that Arne Duncan will still be Secretary of Education during the International Summit on the Teaching Profession in Amsterdam.
