On the Daily Show, Duncan Talks Teachers, NCLB, Race to the Top

Last night, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart for a wide-ranging interview that focused on everything from No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, common standards and the next generation of assessments to elevating the teaching profession and New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin, who, like Duncan, played basketball at Harvard University.

Duncan also spent a significant portion of the interview discussing the importance of a quality education to the nation's economy.

I think our biggest challenge is that we've become too complacent. We're sixteen in the world in college graduates. A generation ago we were first. It isn't that we've dropped. We've flat-lined and fifteen other countries have passed us by.

We have to educate our way to a better economy. There are 2 million jobs out there today in our country that we can't fill because we don't have the educated workforce to fill those jobs. And so we have to be willing to change the status quo.

We have a million young people dropping out of school every single year. There are no jobs-none-they're guaranteed poverty and social failure. We have to challenge the status quo. We have to take some risks and we have to do some things in a different way, but we have to have a high bar, we have to have high expectations.

Afternoon Announcements: August 8, 2011

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has announced that he will unilaterally override the centerpiece requirement of the No Child Left Behind school accountability law, that 100 percent of students be proficient in math and reading by 2014, the New York Times reports.

According to U.S. News & World Report, universities are beginning to offer online high school diplomas.

The Washington Post reports that huge achievement gaps persist in DC schools.

Four of the lowest-performing schools in Montana recently got some good news: All four saw improvement in the annual state tests that measure how well tenth graders are doing in math, reading and science, reports the Billings Gazette.

Morning Announcements: August 31, 2010

Education Week takes a look at states’ progress in complying with No Child Left Behind’s requirement that states report graduation rates for subgroups of students, such as English-language learners or economically disadvantaged children.

The Christian Science Monitor profiles Arne Duncan and his career path leading up to serving as the 9th U.S. Secretary of Education.

USA Today education reporter Mary Beth Marklein interviews Robert Neuman, author of Are You Really Ready for College?,and they discuss strategies to help middle and high school students avoid common problems in college.

The Carbondale Southern Illinoisan reports on the Illinois Student Assistance Corps, an organization that helps potential first-generation college students from low-income families navigate the paperwork and search process of securing grants, scholarships and financial aid.

In Colorado, the governor’s commission investigates ways to close the state’s education achievement gap and hints at some recommendations that will be part of a 10-year plan to be released in October that will focus on attracting the best teachers and school leaders; increasing teacher effectiveness; dealing with consistently low-performing schools; examining the financing of education; suggesting a governance structure that emphasizes accountability; and expanding preschool education.

Although high school students in Oregon made significant gains in reading with a record 71 percent of students passing the state reading exam, 12,000 student are still at risk of not passing and failing to graduate.

In Utah 79 percent of schools met Adequate Yearly Progress in the 2009-10 school year, a decrease from the previous year when 87 percent of schools reached the goal, according to the Deseret News.

Morning Announcements 8.26.10

Yesterday in Little Rock, Secretary Duncan asked public schools to provide educators with a more student achievement data and parents with more  information on teacher effectiveness, according to the Washington Post.

In Indiana, more than 21,000 Indiana high school students earned college credits through Ivy Tech Community College last year which saved parents more than $10 million in tuition bills according to the Indianapolis Business Journal.

In Boston a coalition of businesses, civic organizations and grassroots groups have come together to push for drastic changes in the Boston Teacher Union contract, according to the Boston Globe.

Georgia state officials plan on using their share of Race to the Top money to pilot a merit pay program for educators, expand a system that tracks students from pre-kindergarten through college, boost graduation rates by thousands of students, and revamp the state's math and English standards according to the News Observer.

In an editorial, the Oregonian asks, “Once the state is convinced that online students are receiving a quality education, why should it prevent other families from making the same choice?”

19 Finalists Announced in the Second Round of Race to the Top

In a speech at the National Press Club this afternoon, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that nineteen finalists remain to compete for the $3.4 billion available in the second round of the Race to the Top program. A total of thirty-five states and the District of Columbia applied for the second round of the competition and the winners are expected to be announced in September.

The finalists include Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.

During his speech, Secretary Duncan said there is a “quiet revolution” underway to improve the state of education and it is driven by the collective efforts of parents, educators, administrators, elected officials, foundations, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders. He called teachers and principals the “heroes of the quiet revolution” and challenged reformers to stop pointing fingers, saying, “That's the old frame. In the new frame, people are working together.”

Race to the Top is a federal incentive program designed to reward states that show the greatest willingness to push innovation through rigorous testing standards, data collection, teacher improvement, and plans to turnaround failing schools. The program is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and was announced in July 2009.

During the first round of the competition, forty states plus the District of Columbia applied and only Tennessee and Delaware emerged as the winners. While the Department has made it clear that not all of the finalists will receive a piece of the pie, ten to fifteen winners are expected to be selected this time around.  In two weeks, the second round finalists will travel to Washington to present their strategy to the same peer-reviewers that scored their applications. After the state presentations and a question and answer period, the peer reviewers will announce their final decision. Collectively, forty six states and the District of Columbia applied for either the first round or the second round of Race to the Top, or both.