Arne Duncan

Arne Starkey Duncan (born November 6, 1964) is an American educator and former professional basketball player who served as the 9th United States secretary of education from 2009 to 2016 in the cabinet of President Barack Obama. He previously served as Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools from 2001 to 2009.

Duncan's focus as Secretary of Education was to expand the use of standardized tests, charter schools, and national learning standards like Common Core. He oversaw the Race to the Top program that offered grants and exemptions from the No Child Left Behind Act for states if they implemented these policies. Duncan had bipartisan support when he took office, but his policies became more divisive as teacher's unions objected to the use of testing to evaluate teacher performance and members of the opposing Republican Party accused him of government overreach. He expanded student financial aid and student loan forgiveness, but he was unable to implement his other higher education policies like regulating for-profit colleges or creating a government rating system for the performance of universities. Duncan resigned in 2015 to move back to Chicago with his family. After leaving office, he has worked on anti-violence programs in Chicago.

Before entering politics, Duncan was co-captain of the basketball team at Harvard College, and he then played basketball professionally for the Rhode Island Gulls in the United States and the Eastside Spectres in Australia. He continued playing while in office and used the game to build relationships with Chicago politicians. He won nine out of eleven Hoop It Up three-on-three competitions between 2003 and 2014, participated in the 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2020 NBA All-Star Celebrity Games, and won the USA Basketball three-on-three championship in 2014.

Early life

Arne Starkey Duncan was born in the Chicago neighborhood Hyde Park on November 6, 1964, to Susan and Starkey Duncan. Duncan's father was a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, and his mother was the founder of a tutoring center that operated out of a church basement in the Kenwood–Oakland neighborhood of South Side, Chicago. As a child, Duncan helped his mother with tutoring and played basketball with the students. He credited the experience with teaching him about trust and survival, and he said the other players protected him when dangerous situations arose.

Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and later Harvard College, where he studied sociology. When he attended Harvard, he stood at six feet and five inches. Duncan took a year's leave to prepare for his senior thesis, "The values, aspirations and opportunities of the urban underclass", where he did research by working for his mother's tutoring program.

After leaving Harvard, Duncan played for the Rhode Island Gulls. He also tried out for the Boston Celtics. Duncan then moved to Australia in 1987 to play professional basketball. He played for the Eastside Spectres and 28.6 points in 13 games in his second season. In 1991, he played for Latrobe in the North-West Tasmania League. During his four seasons in Australia, he came to be known by the nickname the Cobra. He also tutored wards of the state while in the country. In this position, he was responsible for managing Chicago's magnet school program. Duncan supported policies with the goals of improving teacher quality and reforming unsuccessful schools. In his early years as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, Duncan responded to failing schools by having them closed. His approach changed in 2006 when he instead ordered that the school's staff must be replaced but the school can stay open. When competing petitions were circulated nationally in 2008 between those who wanted to improve schools and those who wanted to engage in social reform to support students, Duncan was the only education official to sign both.

Duncan's supporters celebrated higher rates of math and reading proficiency in Chicago elementary schools and higher graduation and scholarship rates among high school students. His critics opposed his expansion of charter schools and his attempts to use free market policies to govern school reform. To promote school attendance, Duncan had representatives from Chicago Public Schools make visits to students' homes, and the district offered sports tickets as a reward for attendance. This was followed by a program in September 2008 that paid students up to $4,000 per year for good grades. Duncan supported single-sex education. Duncan threatened to sue the US Department of Education in 2004 after it revoked funding from a Chicago tutoring program, causing it to return the funds. Duncan implemented a policy in 2008 that students with a first language other than English could not be held back a grade for their performance on standardized tests. His appointment was met with wide approval.

Those endorsing Duncan's nomination included the Democrats for Education Reform, He toured the United States in February 2009 to speak with people affected by No Child Left Behind. One of Duncan's earlier critics as Secretary of Education was USA Today writer Greg Toppo, who published a report casting doubt on the idea that Chicago schools had made progress under Duncan.

Duncan was able to exercise more influence than previous Secretaries of Education. Congress was deadlocked on education policy, allowing Duncan to take more direct control without legislative involvement. Relative to other members of Obama's cabinet, Duncan was highly active in policy during the administration's first year. A viral video of Duncan spread after a pass he made in the 2014 game. Kevin Hart was voted MVP by fans that year, but he declined the award and instead gave it to Duncan. He also founded gun control initiatives like Chicago CRED and the Scaling Community Violence Intervention for a Safer Chicago program. Following a 2018 school shooting in Texas, Duncan proposed that parents engage in a national boycott of schools until gun control laws were passed.

Duncan opposed the Republican Party's policies in the 2016 presidential election, though he spoke positively of Republican candidates Jeb Bush and John Kasich for their support of Common Core. He opposed the debt-free college policy of Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley because he felt it preserved the college system instead of reforming it. In 2021, Duncan was one of the few Democrats to endorse Deborah Kerr, his former high school teacher, in the non-partisan race for Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin.

Duncan released a book in 2018 about his experiences working in education policy titled How Schools Work: An Inside Account of Failure and Success from One of the Nation's Longest-Serving Secretaries of Education. In the book, he criticizes the American education system as one that "runs on lies" and fails to help under-performing students.

Duncan returned to the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game in 2020 as a late entrant.

Duncan was critical of Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot and expressed interest in running against her in the 2023 Chicago mayoral election. He announced on March 1, 2022, that he would not run for mayor because he wanted to continue working on his youth anti-violence projects. In 2024, Duncan signed an open letter opposing Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's ouster of CEO Pedro Martinez.

Early life

Publications

References

Works cited

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