Arne Duncan Accepting Obama Nomination

I am in Washington, DC, at the Education Writers Conference. I decided to come down here on the chance that I could somehow communicate to Arne Duncan, Obama’s new Secretary of Education something about the need to get rid of No Child Left Behind. He talked for about 25 minutes to the large audience of education writers from all over the country. I stood in the line at the audience microphone but almost got stopped. The secretary of the organization came over to tell me that the line was just for reporters. Obviously she knew who I was and thought I might be a loose cannon. I told her that I was a reporter, for Education Revolution Magazine! She backed off, reluctantly.

Duncan seems to be an affable man, confident in himself but not too arrogant. He’s tall, and, in an answer to one question, sometimes plays basketball with Obama. For a while he talked about when he felt he had accomplished in Chicago, but a lot of it sounded to me like it was supporting No Child Left Behind.

Finally it was my turn. I said, “I’m Jerry Mintz from Education Revolution Magazine. Our audience is public and private alternative schools. We have a database of over 12,000 of them. In your talk you said that President Obama supports innovative charter schools. But those schools and others in our network find that No Child Left Behind makes innovation and change very difficult. We don’t feel that it measures the things we feel are most important. We want it scrapped. Will your administration do that?”

He replied that there were some things he didn’t like in the law and some things he liked, that he would have to look at it in detail.

I repeated, “We want it scrapped. Will it be scrapped?”

He replied,”I don’t know. But the name No Child Left Behind is toxic. We will at least change the name!” Afterward I said to John Merrow who does the Merrow documentaries on PBS. “So he will keep it but change its name?” He nodded knowingly.

I gave our latest Education Revolution Magazine and a copy of my book to Dunncan’s nearby PR man who was pointed out by Merrow, and the PR man gave me an e mail address through which I could contact him to follow up. I then came up and shook Duncan’s hand, reiterating our position. He acknowledged it. Surprisingly, I had accomplished what I set out to do when I got on the train this morning at Penn Station in New York. I hope it helped a little.

Jerry Mintz