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Arne Duncan will get down as the nearly influential secretary in U.Due south. history.

He maximized federal powers to push button states to serve all students when those states clearly were non. But pushing from the top isn't sustainable.

And later on Duncan's vii hard-fought years, we may have realized the zenith of federal say-so because of Duncan's tenure.

Related: What Arne Duncan did to American pedagogy and whether it will last

Although Congress is negotiating authorization of the Unproblematic and Secondary Education Human action – the legislation that outlines the federal role – improvements will have to come up from the lesser up for the foreseeable futurity.

Stubborn outcomes for black, brownish, low-income families say more than near a system of inequality than anything nearly student potential.

A bottom upwardly arroyo may be for the ameliorate; black and brown families certainly can't trust states to create equitable educational systems. Students of colour are less likely to have experienced and effective classroom teachers.

States impose racially biased out-of-schoolhouse pause and expulsion policies that hurt blackness and brown communities. Merit-based student financial aid programs favor centre- to upper-income families instead of offset-generation collegians. And the stubborn outcomes for black, brown and depression-income families say more virtually a system of inequality than anything about student potential.

Related: Greenbacks flow alone won't contrary the school-to-prison house pipeline

The same legislators who erode voting rights for minority groups, permit housing discrimination and enforce racist criminal justice systems likewise write public teaching policy. In education, the federal government has a similar role in protecting citizens from ceremonious rights violations.

The historic inabilities of states to evangelize quality public schools for disenfranchised groups consistently confirm the fed'south most of import role – enforcing civil rights violations, specially those facilitated past state policy. Duncan served this function very well.

The historic inabilities of states to deliver quality public schools for disenfranchised groups consistently confirm the fed's most important office – enforcing civil rights violations, particularly those facilitated by state policy.

Blackness, dark-brown and depression-income folks need higher academic standards. The rigor behind Mutual Cadre had even middle grade whites crying to opt out. Families and policymakers also demand data that tin tell us how well students are learning.

Duncan'south insistence for common metrics addressed this need. Families also demand states to intervene when it'southward clear that fiddling is being done to turnaround declining schools. Duncan doubled down on Bush'due south No Child Left Behind accountability organisation. The just relief states could receive from NCLB's hard penalties was to accept a reform package from Duncan.

Families need new curricula, didactics methods and schools. From aggressively promoting charter schools to teacher evaluations to supporting Common Core, Duncan pushed how far the federal authorities can assert itself in K-12 educational activity without running it from the White Business firm. Duncan'due south record on addressing all of the aforementioned issues is unassailable.

Only Duncan'southward tenure hasn't made it clearer equally to how the feds can force/compel/incentivize states to protect disenfranchised people. Future secretaries should inquire underserved folks for that advice.

Duncan'southward replacement John King volition take to assistance Democrats get elected into office in the 2022 elections. This won't be an easy task considering Democrats tin't always leverage reforms to garner votes.

Duncan's strategy often enriched and empowered the aforementioned land departments of teaching who facilitated past inequality. Elected officials and superintendents come up and go. Staffers linger. Incentivizing the same staffers that created inequalities is like paying ransom. In addition, at that place are as well many people who call themselves reformers who undermine gains Duncan'due south policies could make with contradictory housing, policing or health policy.

When staunch Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal tin merits the initiatives that Duncan praises, you know y'all take more than a branding problem. At his presidential announcement, Jindal said, "Nosotros reformed pedagogy with almost 100 pct charter schools in New Orleans and at present nosotros have statewide schoolhouse choice because every kid deserves an equal opportunity for a dandy didactics."

Too many non-progressives find cover under the reform tent. These phony-progressives may be data driven, but they're not people or community driven – people not data should always exist the commuter. Moreover, the feds have non found effective means to ensure that the specific communities and districts that needed change are the actual implementers of the reforms. For instance, people who should exist considered well-nigh eligible for a charter school should be the proven school leaders and personnel from the geographic and/or racial communities where change is needed.

Reform should be done with communities, not to them.

Even from a Democrat, top-downwardly approaches don't engender trust. Top-downwardly approaches may seem faster and efficient, only nothing is sustainable without support from the constituents you lot actually need – teachers, parents and members of congress.

Because nurturing local, diverse talent wasn't an explicit goal of reform, we moved likewise quickly from developing local talent and investing in innovations to scaling up outsiders and unproven schemes. As an case, the promises that charter schools would presumably bring were neither properly vetted nor sufficiently time tested. As a consequence, charter schools in the principal look no unlike than traditional public schools. In some cases they merely wait whiter. Scaling up without diversity as well meant that we were ramping up the white privilege.

Rigid accountability systems didn't help matters. By leveraging accountability systems introduced past Bush's No Child Left Backside, Duncan mitigated his ain crusade. In an interview earlier this year Duncan told me, "Accountability is not almost a label; it's not about transparency although transparency is very important. Information technology's almost taking action when children aren't being well served …There has to be a bottom line."

School leaders under pressure to run into benchmarks simply leaned on what's predictable and comfortable – quality traditional schools – rather than introduce new curricula and didactics methods that reflect changing times and demographics. Nevertheless waivers, Duncan turned a blind eye to accountability hawks who were more like accountants than entrepreneurs.

Those aforementioned hawks too frequently wanted to intermission apart systems rather than improve or develop them. These kinds of actions spoiled the well for Duncan politically and made future party-blind motion untenable.

So afterward seven years, politically speaking, blackness and chocolate-brown communities are in the same position. Public school advocates will have to work from the bottom up to sustain the reforms we demand. Students, teachers and parents may be office of the problem, simply they accept to be the lion'south share of the solution.

Arne Duncan served nobly. And we are the wiser for it.

This story was produced past The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news website focused on inequality and innovation in didactics. Read more columns by Andre Perry .

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Dr. Andre Perry, a contributing writer, is a David K. Rubenstein Swain at The Brookings Institution. Perry was the founding dean of urban educational activity at Davenport University in G Rapids, Mich. Previously,...