Arne Duncan Edutopia interview

http://www.edutopia.org/arne-duncan-chicago-public-schools-video

Arne Duncan at 2008/08/17 House hearing

http://eriksyring.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/improving-public-schools-hearing/

Pluses:

- Against social promotion.
- Backed “back to basics” – but no mention of content rigor and depth.
- Supporter of charter schools (Renaissance 2010 – now 75 charter schools out of 625), sees himself as portfolio manager.
- Authorized site-wide Principal and teacher replacement where required.
- Extended school day and year.

- Promoted use of schools as greatly-extended-day resource centers.
- Increased Principal standards (specifics?).
- Applications per teacher position increased greatly during his tenure.
- 3-year teacher retention increased to 85% under his tenure.
- Supports hard goals, flexible processes.

- Recognizes that status quo public schooling perpetuates poverty.
Minuses:

- Literacy (and perhaps superficial arithmetic) over analytical training/actual mathematics?

- Performance pay – but apparently only in poorest schools and with union approval, not parent-choice driven.

- “Relative performance more important than absolute performance”??
- Vouchers??

Too much emphasis on plant relative to content – it comes through why he would sign the “Broader, Bolder” statement, in addition to the historic Education Equality manifesto.

Arne Duncan – comments on nomination

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNNGDPWqono

Wall Street Journal

Paul Gigot, Jason Riley, Collin Levy, Dan Henninger

School funding as civil rights issue??  Chicago: several charter school campuses per charter, “cap” not increased.

Arne Duncan nomination