Duncan Sharpens Second-Term Agenda

Posted by on December 10, 2012

The road ahead

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently laid out his priorities for the next four years in a speech at the Foundation for Excellence in Education, emphasizing he thinks teacher preparation is broken and the best educators should be teaching the highest-need children, reports Michele McNeil in Education Week. He also wants to renew focus on teacher and principal quality. Duncan said teacher education programs are “part of the problem,” and without getting specific, said there are a “number of things we plan to do,” such as a competitive initiative to foster innovation in schools of education. “We need to push very, very hard in schools of education,” he said. He also expressed concern that no schools or districts he knows of work “systemically” to identify the best teachers and principals, then place them with children with the highest needs. Duncan also indicated early education would get a renewed focus in his second term. This was the most widely viewed speech from the secretary since President Barack Obama was re-elected.

Read more: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2012/11/_this_marks_the_first.html