UA News

Ron Marx, the UA College of Education dean, said Obama's nominee for the U.S. Secretary of Education is a strong and solid pick.

Teacher education, dropout rates, relationships between communities and their schools and issues pertaining to standardized testing will undoubtedly be some of the most pressing issues the new United States Secretary of Education will have to address.

And Chicago schools administrator Arne Duncan – U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's nominee for the post – is a strong candidate for the task, said Ron Marx, The University of Arizona College of Education dean.

"I think Arne fits the mold of what I perceive is the Obama approach to building his administrative team," Marx said of Duncan, the chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools, was the strongest candidate for the job.

"He's been battle tested in one of the largest urban centers in the country," Marx added. "He has a strong experience in urban education, he has the ability to manage and to get things done but at the same time, he is not ideologically inclined."

It is an important time for the education system in the United States.

Recent research has looked at educational reform "as one element of community reform," Marx said. That is to say, schools and education have the potential to influence the health, economy and political landscape of their communities, making their presence all the more important to consider and to understand.

Other pressing issues are the No Child Left Behind revisions, early childhood education – of which Duncan and Obama are proponents – and the needs of English language learners.

"I think he's going to have to handle some of the revisions of NCLB, and I think some of the accountability provisions of NCLB are going to disappear," Marx said.

The law's intention was to ensure by 2014 that minimum mathematics, reading and English proficiency requirements were met by students in various grade levels, among other requirements.

"For example, he knows that by holding the 2014 target is unattainable," Marx said, adding that Duncan is critically aware of the issues facing urban schools, which are educating a sizable portion of the nation's students.

"For someone who really knows that those issues," Marx said, "leading the American federal education system is very important."

Marx also emphasized the need to support English language learners.

He noted a report published this week by the Center for American Progress that explains that nearly 70 percent of English learners are citizens by birth or naturalization and start their education in the United States.

However, "for those newcomers who enter the U.S. school system in later grades, time and the constraints of the traditional school day pose a particularly serious challenge," the report noted.

The report continued: "Surprisingly, only limited research examines the effect of expanded learning opportunities, including after-school programs, on English language learners' educational success. Additional research is clearly needed given the growing presence of this population in our schools. The little evidence that does exist suggests that English learners have much to benefit from expanded learning time. And schools and districts that have incorporated more academic learning time appear to confirm these research findings."

Marx said Duncan is poised to handle such pressing issues, as well as the accountability measures embedded in No Child Left Behind.

And while Duncan has been criticized for having little experience in the realm of public policy work, Marx said the Obama administration will likely make up for that in its appointment of key deputy secretaries.

Another critical point is the need for a federal focus on higher education. Marx said it will be important for the office to appointment a higher education expert.

While Duncan serves on boards that oversee functions at Harvard University, his alma mater, "his exclusive focus has been K-12. But I think the higher education piece will be really critical."