Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sat down for a series of one-on-ones with the national education press yesterday, and their stories are starting to paint a picture of the man, his policy leanings, and his priorities. What do we know about him?
1.???????????? First, he's definitely a liberal. That's not meant to be pejorative; I LIKE liberals! (Which is a good thing, considering where I live.) He's giddy about the federal largesse in the stimulus package ("It's a historic chance to make things dramatically better," he told the AP, and "We have a chance to make education in America dramatically better - and, for a whole host of reasons, it has never been more important that we do that," he told USA Today). And he has no problem with the government taking responsibility for the needs of poor children. "If they're hungry we need to feed them, if they don't have clothes you need to give them clothes," he told Education Week. And he's also willing to live his values; he and his wife are looking for a ??"great public school that's diverse."
2.???????????? He's fired up about charter schools, education data systems, and merit pay programs, and is making it clear that he and his boss want these initiatives included in the final stimulus bill. (They're in the House version but were stripped out in the Senate.) "That stuff's hugely important to me," he told Ed Week.
3.???????????? Finally, he expects to have control over a $15 billion kitty that he can?? use to push states and districts to embrace far-reaching reforms, including more rigorous--and maybe even more "common"--standards. "With this fund, we really have a chance to drive dramatic changes, to take to scale what works, invest in what works," he told Education Week. Yes, maybe, but as I wrote several months ago, I'm skeptical that the Department of Education can spend big discretionary bucks like that without inviting charges of cronyism or worse. (And that's when we used to talk in terms of millions, not billions!)
And, of course, everyone agrees that he's a really nice, decent, smart guy, which is a breath of fresh air for the corner office at 400 Maryland Avenue.
12:18 pm Amy Fagan adds that in other Arne news, he tells the Washington Post's Maria Glod that his young daughter will be attending public school in Arlington County.
