10. Arne Duncan
Last Friday I had the privilege of attending the Channel 13 Celebration of Teaching and Learning in New York City. One of the highlights was hearing Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speak about his vision for our our schools and our students. Although this speech has not yet been posted on the Department of Education website, another recent speech has, and covers many of the same points Duncan made on Friday. Here are his remarks: Education, as President Obama has said, "is no longer just a pathway to opportunity and success—it's a prerequisite to success." We are convinced we must educate our way to a better economy. The second challenge is the civil rights challenge, the imperative to live up to the great American Dream of equal opportunity. Education has always been the great equalizer in America. No matter what your race, national origin, disability, or zip code, every child is entitled to a quality public education. Today, more than ever, we acknowledge America's need—and a public school's obligation—to teach all students to their full potential. And yet we know that we still have a long way to go to achieve that dream of equal educational opportunity. Nearly 30 percent of our students today drop out or fail to complete high school on time. Nationwide, researchers have identified 2,000 high schools that have been dubbed dropout factories. These 2,000 high schools produce half of the nation's dropouts, two-thirds of all Hispanic dropouts, and nearly three fourths of black dropouts. That is why education is the civil rights issue of our generation. Our work either builds upon Dr. King's legacy, or lets him down—there is no middle ground. For years, states and districts have largely ignored chronically low-performing schools, or tried to tinker around the edges of institutions that were in educational meltdown. The lack of outcry, the lack of urgency, and the absence of innovation has frankly been deeply disturbing. But the federal government has a special role to play in protecting the rights of disadvantaged and minority students. We are no longer willing to gloss over the educational failures of the bottom five percent of the nation's 100,000 schools. We are going to insist on rigorous change in chronically underperforming schools, and the federal government is going to provide generous incentives to implement those changes. But to turn around our lowest-performing schools, we will need a new generation of principals and teachers prepared to take on this difficult challenge, in addition to new support for teachers currently in these schools who are committed and ready to transform the educational opportunities of their students. The third and final challenge is demographic. A massive exodus of Baby Boomers from the teaching force in the next decade is going to drive demand for more and better teachers. We currently have about 3.2 million teachers. But more than half of all teachers and principals are Baby Boomers. During the next three to five years, we could lose a third of veteran teachers and school leaders to retirement. The challenge to our schools is not just a looming teacher shortage, but rather a shortage of great teachers in the schools and communities where they are needed the most, and that have been historically underserved. As you know, high-poverty, high-needs schools still struggle to attract and retain good teachers. Teacher openings in science and math are often hard to fill with effective instructors. Students with disabilities and English language learners are still underserved. Rural classrooms are facing shortages as well—and we have far too few teachers of color. Only two percent, one in 50 teachers today are African-American males. Something is fundamentally wrong with that picture. These problems are not self-correcting. They must be tackled by everyone, head-on, including colleges of education. At the same time, it is no secret to any of you that the bar has been raised for successful teacher preparation programs. We ask much more of teachers today than even a decade ago. Teachers are now asked to achieve significant academic growth for all students, yet instruct students with ever-more diverse needs. Teaching has never been more difficult, it has never been more important—and the need for student success has never been so urgent. I am convinced that our ability to attract, and more importantly, retain, great talent over the next five years will shape public education for the next thirty years. It is truly a once-in-a-generation opportunity. posted by Nancy Brown
posted 3/9/2010 1:02 PM
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In another example of the digitisation of information, Edutopia, the magazine of George Lucas' Education foundation, ceased publication with this month's issue. 
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