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 was 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. The center was threatened by street gangs, and when Duncan was six it was firebombed after the church's pastor refused to let it be used to store weapons. Duncan was an active basketball player as a child.
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. He played on Harvard's basketball team beginning in his sophomore year, and he was appointed co-captain in his senior year. He was named a first team Academic All-American. 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 in the National Basketball League in 1988 and 1989, averaging 24.1 points in 23 games in his first season 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. It was at this time Duncan met his future wife, Karen. They had two children together.
Chicago Public Schools Duncan moved back to Chicago in 1992. Upon his return, he became director of another South Side tutoring program, the Ariel Education Initiative, where he worked with his sister. The program was funded by financier John Rogers, and together the two eventually founded a charter school out of it. Duncan became Deputy Chief of Staff of the Chicago Public Schools district in 1998, working under Paul Vallas. In this position, he was responsible for managing Chicago's magnet school program.
Basketball was the sport of choice for community figures to play while fraternizing. While working in Chicago, Duncan befriended state senator Barack Obama, who would later become president of the United States, and they got to know each other by playing pick-up games. Their social circle also included John Rogers and Craig Robinson. He played his first Hoop It Up three-on-three competition in 2003, and he won nine of the eleven championships between 2003 and 2014. Three of these were with Rogers and Robinson.
Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed Duncan as the CEO of Chicago Public Schools in 2001. Duncan supported policies with the goals of improving teacher quality and reforming unsuccessful schools. As CEO, Duncan was responsible for selecting which new schools would be opened as part of Daley's Renaissance 2010 initiative. 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.
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. The same year, he received backlash after he proposed opening a high school that would support gay students called Pride Campus.
U.S. Secretary of Education Nomination
President-elect Barack Obama announced his nomination of Duncan to be Secretary of Education on December 16, 2008, at a press conference in a school in Chicago. Obama explained that he had chosen Duncan because he wanted someone who was willing to explore alternative theories of education and to make controversial decisions that may upset interest groups.
Those endorsing Duncan's nomination included the Democrats for Education Reform, the National Parent Teacher Association, teachers' union leader Randi Weingarten, and the preceding Secretary of Education from a Republican administration, Margaret Spellings. His supporters touted him as being able to work both with groups that want stricter standards for teachers and with groups that want to increase education spending. The appointment was one of seven that were confirmed unanimously by the Senate on January 20, 2009. 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.
Early tenure Education was not a central political issue in 2009, and the primary concerns in education—reforming the No Child Left Behind program and ensuring schools could remain operational during the Great Recession—had bipartisan support. Because of these factors, Duncan did not have to face significant political attacks early in his tenure and began as a popular member of Obama's cabinet. His appointment was met with wide approval.
Relative to other members of Obama's cabinet, Duncan was highly active in policy during the administration's first year. Once Obama was president, Duncan began participating in Obama's basketball games and morning runs, along with presidential aide Reggie Love. His close working relationship with Obama from their time working together in Chicago allowed him additional influence.
Going into office, Duncan stated that the administration would be implementing its Zero to Five program to fund preschool, programs to improve teacher quality through incentives and performance-based compensation, and to raise academic standards as a means to increase high school graduation rates. He 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. This often meant he was working directly with state governments instead of Congress. The enactment of the No Child Left Behind Act years prior gave the position additional power, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allocated $100 billion for the Department of Education.
Race to the Top and Common Core
Duncan's tenure as Secretary of Education was defined by his support for national learning standards and standardized tests. He believed that standardization would allow for objective comparisons and ratings of teachers and schools. He implemented his policies through the Race to the Top program, which provided additional education funding to states on the condition that they implemented certain reforms. It was authorized as part of stimulus spending during the Great Recession, and the program was considered insignificant in its early days as it was given less than one percent of the federal budget's allocations for public schools.
To be eligible for Race to the Top funding, states had to implement national learning standards, eliminate caps on charter schools, and authorize the use student performance as a factor in teacher evaluations. Duncan hoped that testing under national learning standards would allow focus on critical thinking with written responses instead of simple multiple choice questions. The program had other effects on schools, including more focus on test scores, higher academic standards, and more leverage for districts to terminate teachers. In 2011, Race to the Top was amended so it allow states to allowed states to be waived from the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Duncan opposed the No Child Left Behind program, arguing that it caused states to reduce their standards to assure that students would meet them, though he spoke positively of its help in identifying an achievement gap in education and a need for greater accountability. The waiver was accepted by 42 states plus Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico.