WASHINGTON – Invoking Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan told listeners at a Congressional Black Caucus event Monday that the only way to improve economic conditions for low-income minorities was to close the education gap.
In 1966, King visited the North Lawndale community on Chicago’s West Side, Duncan said. After King lamented the neighborhood’s poverty and slum-like conditions, billions of dollars poured in to fund antipoverty and job placement programs.
“When I took over the Chicago public schools in 2001, 35 years later, the children in North Lawndale were still desperately poor,” said Duncan. “For all those billions of dollars of investment, you have to ask yourself why that was the case. I would submit to you that the one thing that didn’t change in the community is the only thing with the power to end cycles of poverty, and that’s the quality of education.”
To help shrink the education gap, Duncan said the Obama administration was prepared to invest $350 million to increase access to high quality early childhood education programs. He called the programs “paramount if the nation truly is serious about closing its achievement and opportunity gaps.
” Glorified babysitting doesn’t get us where we need to go,” he continued. “If our children enter kindergarten with literacy and socialization skills intact, they have a chance to be very, very successful.”
Duncan pointed to the 41 states that have raised their K-12 standards as success stories that will benefit children from underserved communities.
“For the first time in this country, a child in Massachusetts and a child in Mississippi are going to be measured by the same yardstick,” he said. “We’re going to stop lying to children and families and tell them the truth. The truth may be we have a long way to go but … we can’t say they’re at the same standard when they’re not close to being college or career ready.”
