WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in a speech before an audience Wednesday at the National Press Club, announced a new policy to reallocate state correctional funding dollars to raises for teachers in the nation’s most underprivileged districts.
In what were perhaps his most intentional comments to date on race, Duncan addressed the disparities in educational access and correctional patterns within a decidedly racial framework.
The secretary challenged educators and those to whom they answer to take “an unsparing look at our own attitudes and our own decisions and the ways that they are tied to both race and class.”
“In the wake of Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere, this has become a central discussion for many in America, and rightly so,” he said. “Those of us in education simply cannot afford to stay on the sidelines. Let’s recognize upfront that this is one of the hardest conversations that we can have in education.
“Suspensions, expulsions and expectations for learning track far too closely to race and class,” Duncan continued. “Sometimes the facts must force a tough look inward. This is not just about explicit, obvious bias. Indeed, sometimes when a genuinely transparent moment of bias arises, the whole country stops and takes a breath. A child holds a clock and we see a bomb. But more often, it’s far subtler stuff buried in invisible privileges and expectations that we’re not even aware that we hold.
“It’s painful to admit to one’s own actions. It’s painful to admit that one’s own actions might be causing harm, particularly for us as educators who come to this work from such an altruistic place,” said Duncan. “It’s difficult work challenging centuries of institutionalized racism and class inequality, but I firmly believe a hard look at ourselves is a critical part of becoming the nation we strive to be — one of liberty and opportunity regardless of circumstances of your birth.”
Duncan proposed a reallocation of funding from the correctional system to the poorest schools in each state “to get great teachers in front of our neediest kids.”
