Word: duncan
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Barack Obama's choice for education secretary, Chicago school chief Arne (Ar-NEE) Duncan, is getting a warm welcome from most factions of the education community. He's been, in many ways, an unconventional leader willing to find creative solutions to some of public education's oldest dilemmas, including school attendance and dropout rates. The 44-year-old will have a lot on his plate, if confirmed, including what to do with President Bush's much maligned No Child Left Behind policy and how to make college more affordable. (See Obama's other Cabinet picks...
...Grew up in Hyde Park and went to the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Duncan's mother ran a tutoring program and his father was a professor at the University of Chicago...
...After graduating with a sociology degree from Harvard in 1987 - where he was co-captain of the basketball team - Duncan spent four years playing professional basketball in Australia. (He went Down Under after first trying out for the Boston Celtics.) While in Australia, Duncan also tutored underprivileged students. He was among the friends who played basketball with Obama on Election Day and has played pick-up games with Michael Jordan...
...After his stint as a pro athlete, Duncan returned to Chicago to help run, with his sister, the Ariel Education Initiative, a mentoring and tutoring program...
...Duncan was hired to run Chicago's magnet schools program. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley tapped Duncan to be schools chief in 2001, after first offering the job to someone else. Duncan was only 36 and had never before held a high-powered post and had never even had his own secretary, according to the Chicago Tribune. The Chicago school system is the third-largest in the country...