Ask Arne: The Role of Private Funds and Interests in Education

So Arne Duncan, US Secretary of Education has stuck his foot in his mouth many times along the way. Looks like he's making an effort toward damage control mixed with a healthy dose of propaganda, with a video entitled "Ask Arne: The Role of Private Funds and Interests in Education".


The part I found most interesting is from minute 1:40 to 3:55:

Interviewer:
There's concern around private corporations and philanthropists that are involved in public education and some skepticism as well about who's providing the funding. So what is the role of private dollars in public education?

Duncan:
I think it's important because sadly education in under invested in in the vast majority of places around the country, there's always tremendous unmet need. Whether it's more time for teachers, whether it's more money for professional development, whether it's money for after school programs for kids, summer school programs, whatever it might be, having philanthropy, foundations, having businesses step in and help there, um, I think that's a good thing.

And you gotta be smart, you gotta have good partnerships, so what I don't want is schools to become islands isolated from the rest of the community, that doesn't make sense. But when it's all hands on deck, when everyone's working together, where schools are becoming community centers, that's a really important thing, and it's very very helpful.

So just couple examples, places like the GE Foundation, have provided a lot of time and energy and resources to help in terms of teachers' professional development, math and literacy training.

Places like the Ford Foundation, have helped to sponsor our Labor Management Conference every single year, allowing hundreds of school districts, uh, labor leaders, school board members, and management to come and work together on tough issues.

[Obvious editing cut occurred here in the video.]

Places like the Joyce Foundation helped in terms of teacher evaluation, also did fantastic work trying to reduce gun violence, which is a huge issue that plagues Chicago and other places around the country.

IBM has sponsored a fantastic school in New York that the president and I visited: P-Tech, where young people can now not just graduate with a high school diploma, but graduate with an associate degree; two years of your college is paid for.

These are actually very productive and positive partnerships. Again, all of this should be determined at the local level, not by us. And it should be done in a thoughtful strategic way. But with so much unmet need for students, for teachers, for schools, to shut the door, let's say, to all of these people who are bad somehow, or have an agenda of hurting kids or hurting teachers, um, that simply hasn't been my experience.