Former Education Secretary Duncan says Trump authoritarian, doesn't want educated citizens

Arne Duncan, who served seven years as President Barack Obama's Secretary of Education, described President Donald Trump as an "authoritarian leader" who calls the press "the enemy of the people" and says he is the only source of truth.

"It's a very, very scary thing," Duncan declared in response to a question at a Headliners Book Event Sept. 20 at the National Press Club.

He said the president "doesn't want independent thinkers" and "only wants people to listen to him."

The Trump administration has stopped talking about any of the education goals President Obama set to improve high school and college graduation rates, Duncan said.

"They're not committed to having the best-educated citizenry," Duncan remarked. "I don't think it is in President Trump's best interest to have a well-educated citizenry."

"I hate that this is the case," Duncan said. "But I believe we have a president now who is unlike any we have seen in our lifetimes and maybe any we have ever had historically. It's scary."

Duncan acknowledged that Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have supported the technical and skills education programs that he promoted, but, he said, "I haven't seen them do anything about them."

The president's proposed education budget for fiscal 2019 maintains the big funding increases in these programs made under President Obama, in contrast to cuts proposed elsewhere in the Education Department.

Dressed in a blue shirt without jacket or tie, Duncan came to the Club to promote his new book, "How Schools Work," a memoir of his seven years as chief of the Chicago public school system as well as his tenure as Education Secretary. He was interviewed by Emily Wilkins, federal education policy reporter at Bloomberg Government, and also took questions from the audience.

Since he left office, Duncan has been active in efforts to stem gun violence and control the ownership and proliferation of guns. He said "gun violence is not a school issue. It's an American issue...For the vast majority of children, schools are the safest place they are all day."

Duncan said he agreed that schools "can and should take every protective measure," but he said "this so-called hardening of schools is a cute sound-bite but there's no substance there."

Schools "can't harden" arrivals or dismissals, bus trips, or football games, Duncan said. Such proposals are "manufactured by the NRA to sell more guns and try to put guns in teachers' hands," he said, referring to the National Rifle Association.

The answer to what he called the American "obsession" with guns is "less guns and making sure the wrong people don't have guns." To only "harden schools," Duncan said, is "extraordinarily dishonest intellectually" and would "manufacture more fear."

As Education Secretary, Duncan used $4.8 billion in competitive federal grants to states, called Race to the Top, to encourage charter schools and the use of student test score gains to pay and promote teachers. He said he still favored these programs. But Duncan said it would be best "to create great neighborhood schools in every neighborhood."

He said extra pay for better teachers should be based on "multiple measures" including evaluations by other teachers, observations by principals, and surveys of students, as well as gains on standardized tests.