Arne Duncan, CEO of Chicago Schools, was chosen by the new president Barack Obama for the post of U.S. Secretary of Education.
Mr. Duncan is also known thanks to the number of his exemplary schools, like the Dodge Renaissance Academy where he was tapped at. We want to remind to you that the academy was the first from the list of failing schools that Mr. Duncan closed and then reopened achieving the success in such way. In connection with his new job he must also leave one of the most powerful, proud and increasing group of Chicago where he will be remembered as the person who tried to embody an experimental program concerning the closing of failing schools and the following replacement of them with 100 reorganized and new ones.
Duncan stumbled while launching the program, dubbed Renaissance 2010. As he closed failing schools, students were dispersed temporarily to other schools for a year or more, stigmatizing many of those kids and leading to a spike in violence at some receiving high schools. Parents, advocates and kids rightly complained and, ultimately, Duncan took heed.
Now the transformation occurs over the summer. Kids return to the same school building in the fall but the rest is new -- most of the teachers and other adults, the curriculum and support programs.
We respect Duncan for sticking to his guns: he is passionate about fixing chronically failing schools, and he wouldn't retreat. But he also listened and made adjustments. Time will tell whether Renaissance 2010 is a success, though early results look promising.
Those qualities -- vision and compromise -- will serve Duncan well as education secretary.
He is not an ideologue fueled by a belief that there is one single answer to fixing urban schools. Under Renaissance 2010, he has approved a broad range of schools, including an all-boys school, a school based on a Roman Catholic model and a virtual school.
But Duncan is not flighty. His choices are all guided by a single goal: systematically improving what goes in the classroom.
During his seven-year tenure, Duncan has tightly focused on improving teaching and learning -- from recruiting higher-quality teachers to dispatching reading specialists across Chicago to overhauling high school curricula. He has also made a strong push to help kids graduate and get to college.
Duncan always took a pass on the education fad of the day, choosing instead to invest in long-term approaches supported by solid research.
Duncan has a big job ahead of him. Too many of the nation's schools are still woefully subpar, and a fight over President Bush's signature No Child Left Behind law looms.
But Duncan earned his stripes in Chicago.
The nation will be lucky to have him.
The parents of the kids attending 2 rural schools - Goodsprings and Mount Charleston Elementary Schools – are disturbed because CCSD (Clark County School District) representatives informed about their intention to close these small schools. According to CCSD officials’ statement they are going to save money for other schools of this district in such way. But the parents are not agree with such decision of local authorities and intend to protest against the closure of the schools. As parents told in the interview to...
Recently the official representative of Montgomery county public schools (MCPS) and the President of the Montgomery County Board of Education Shirley Brandman and the Vice President of the Board and Chair of the Policy Committee Patricia O’Neill made a statement aiming to falsify the information of Washington Post article entitled “Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label”. According to this statement, the Washington Post article “Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label” gives its readers an impression that Montgomery County Board of Education has already stopped to ...
This Tuesday the BOE (Board of Education) of Montgomery County decided to make an official statement concerning the closing of all MCPS (Montgomery County Public Schools) on Inauguration Day (the 20th of January, 2009) when the new president of The United States of America will be inaugurated. Besides this date the resolution, proposed by Christopher Barclay (the member of BOE) on the 18th of November, implies the decision of cancelling school classes on all the future Inauguration Days. This means that the students of MCPS will have an official day-off...
The sensational scientific breakthrough was made recently by US scientists when they confirmed the fact that the second case of unblemished conception among sharks has happened. Few facts about the first registered case of 2007 - a female representative of hammer-headed sharks turned to be impregnate without any influence from the human side and without interference of a male shark. We want to remind to you that this biological miracle happened in the zoo of Omaha, state Nebraska. Now it is the approved fact that the first pregnant shark bore a shark calf. So it was the first example of the so-called virgin birth.
The presidents of the University of Washington and Washington State University decline pay raises this year -- and one asked for a pay cut.
Parents of two Bothell High School cheerleaders have sued the Northshore School District, alleging school officials erred when they suspended the girls from the team this year after nude photos of them circulated through the student body.
Getting into college in Washington could get tougher in coming months as universities and community colleges respond to orders from Gov. Chris Gregoire to slash their budgets by millions.
Closing seven Seattle Public Schools buildings, relocating several programs and eliminating five others in the fall could save money and balance enrollment, Seattle schools chief Maria Goodloe-Johnson told the school board Tuesday.