Saturday, January 3, 2009

Know Your Obama Underlings, Part 6

Editor's Note: This is another installment in the Rapier's daily profiles of one of Barack Obama's nominees to a cabinet or high-level administration post.
Today's Profile
Secretary of Education:
Arne Duncan

Born November 6, 1964. Duncan was raised in Hyde Park, Chicago, where his father Starkey Duncan was a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, and mother Susan Morton runs The Sue Duncan Children's Center for African American youth on Chicago's South Side. Duncan spent a great deal of his free time in his youth sharpening his basketball skills with the neighborhood children. Duncan's spoken accent at this time led at least one college basketball coach to assume that he was of African-American descent. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in sociology in 1987. His senior thesis, for which he took a year's leave to do research in Kenwood, in inner-city Chicago, was entitled The values, aspirations and opportunities of the urban underclass. At Harvard, Duncan became co-captain of the varsity team and named a first team Academic All-American. From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Australia. He currently resides with his Australian wife, Karen, and his two children in Hyde Park.

Duncan has extensive experience in educational policy and management, but has not been a teacher. In 1992 Duncan became director of the Ariel Education Initiative, a program to enhance educational opportunities for children on Chicago's South Side. Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed Duncan to serve as CEO of Chicago Public Schools on June 26, 2001.


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