Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, spent more than seven years as CEO of Chicago Public Schools and as such is the longest-serving big-city superintendent in the country. During his confirmation hearings, he called education “the civil rights issue of our generation.” His father was a professor at the University of Chicago, and his mother runs an independent early-learning center on Chicago’s South Side. Under Duncan’s leadership, the city district had record gains in elementary reading and math standards. Gains in ACT scores among high schoolers were triple those achieved nationally.
