Word: duncans
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...they'll definitely work hard to soften the RTT language and then work to undermine the implementation." The Administration believes it can overcome resistance to its plans. Eight states have amended or removed laws to make themselves friendlier to charter schools, partly in anticipation of Duncan's pot of gold. And California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing hard to drop a law that prevents state officials from using student data to evaluate teachers...
...Duncan's approach has also scrambled the once predictable politics of educational reform. Republicans typically favor reform. But Duncan's top-down approach, with Washington telling states how to behave, makes some conservatives nervous. "When you're talking about that much money and you're using the language that the Secretary is using, then you get states already starting to change some of their laws before any money has actually been given out," says Representative John Kline, the new ranking Republican member of the House Education Committee. "I'm not completely comfortable with that...
...Duncan, 44, is no stranger to occasional discomfort. He grew up in Hyde Park--the tony South Side enclave that's home to the University of Chicago--but played a lot of basketball in one of the rougher neighborhoods nearby. Often the only white player on the court, he became adept at figuring out when to be aggressive and when to hang back. In the early 1960s, Duncan's mother started an after-school tutoring program in an inner-city neighborhood following her discovery that few of the 9-year-olds in her Bible-study class could read. "In Chicago...
...Duncan and his siblings spent each weekday afternoon helping out at their mother's center on the corner of 46th and Greenwood. After the tutoring, everyone would shoot some hoops. Those were his evenings. During the day, Duncan attended the prestigious University of Chicago Lab School, a rigorous K-12 program that led him to Harvard. There he graduated magna cum laude while maintaining his obsession with basketball, co-captaining the team his senior year. After college and a failed tryout with the Boston Celtics, Duncan flew to Australia to play in that nation's professional basketball league. He stayed...
...returned to Chicago to run a nonprofit for investment banker and Obama backer John W. Rogers Jr.--his mentor since their years together at the Lab School, where Duncan says he followed Rogers around "like a puppy dog." Duncan proceeded to co-found a small school with his sister. He then ran the magnet program for the Chicago board of education and was the system's deputy chief of staff, before being tapped to serve as its head. His 7½ years as superintendent produced mixed results. While he oversaw modest gains in student achievement, Duncan's tenure was most notable...