Arne Duncan Moves to the National Stage

President-Elect Barack Obama’s new choice of Education Secretary, Chicago schools CEO Arne Duncan, is receiving wide praise from various factions of the Democratic Party, and even from some Republicans. Everyone seems to support the choice, from outgoing Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to the National Education Association. Like Obama, Duncan has embraced charter schools and teacher pay for performance, which pleases some, but he’s also implemented reforms in cooperation with the local teachers union, and doesn’t demonize teacher voice like some do. Moreover, as a big advocate of pre-K programs in Chicago, he recognizes that poverty is the biggest source of the achievement gap, not teacher unions. As Ezra Klein notes, Duncan doesn’t represent "Switzerland" in the Democrats’ education wars; instead, he seems to be someone who will be able to synthesize the best elements of competing factions. 

As Duncan moves from Chicago to the national stage, it will be interesting to see whether he will take on a big issue that urban superintendents have limited control over: economic segregation. Duncan’s embrace of pre-K programs suggests he understands the need to tackle the number one source of inequality – family poverty – but will he support efforts to address what research finds to be the primary fountainhead of school inequality: the separation of rich and poor students in America’s public schools? All the things that people talk about in education – the need for high quality teachers, high expectations, well-disciplined classrooms, active parents etc – are much more likely to be found in middle class than high poverty schools. Will Obama and Duncan seek to reduce the number of high poverty schools the way housing officials have sought to reduce the number of high poverty public housing projects?

Duncan and Obama are both strong supporters of public school choice, including charter schools, which suggests that they understand the need to give students stuck in bad schools the chance to transfer out. But what will be the role of magnet schools – public schools with special themes that are meant to attract economically and racially diverse student bodies?

This question is raised in a fascinating new report from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA.  In the foreword, Gary Orfield notes that twice as many students (2 million) attend magnet schools as charter schools (1 million) and yet the federal government currently provides $200 million to charter schools and just $100 million to magnet schools. Obama wants to double charter school funding to $400 million. Will he also substantially increase magnet school funding, as Sen. John Edwards suggested during the primaries? 

To some, magnet schools and school integration may seem old-fashioned. Back in the heady days of the 1960s, Martin Luther King Jr. called for the appointment of a cabinet level Secretary of Integration.  But today, some believe, the issue is achievement, not integration, which is why charters are in vogue.

Not so fast, say the authors of the UCLA report, Erica Frankenberg and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley. Magnet schools, they note, have a strong record of increasing academic achievement, far stronger than the mixed record for charter schools.

Magnet schools might seem to be a lost cause following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2007 decision curtailing racial integration plans in Seattle and Louisville, but some 60 U.S. school districts are now using family income rather than race as the primary factor in student assignment.  This focus on economic status of classmates is even more closely linked to achievement than race, according to numerous studies. 

Moving from an urban district to the national arena will entail many changes for the new Education Secretary-designee. Improving on Washington’s current strategy of trying to make "separate but equal" schooling work would represent real and lasting reform.

Comments

[Dennis]

I'm trying to get my arms around this selection. After seven years of administering Chicago Public Schools, Mr. Duncan can tout as his success for a 17% at-grade literacy rate. I am very concerned that Mr. Duncan is yet another product of the "Chicago style" of political mechanics. I, for one, am not expecting any seismic change in accountability for classroom teachers or efficient use of financial resources.