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By Howard Weiss-Tisman BRATTLEBORO -- U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be coming to Vermont as part of a 15-state listening tour he will be conducting in schools across the country. Duncan is scheduled to be the commencement speaker at Saint Michael's College on Thursday, May 14, and will likely visit one or two schools in the Burlington area while he is in the state. Duncan started the national tour Tuesday with three events in West Virginia and said he wanted to visit rural, urban, suburban and racially diverse districts as he gathers input for the Obama administration's education agenda. The controversial No Child Left Behind law is up for re-authorization and federal education officials will travel with Duncan around the country to talk with students, parents, teachers, administrators and community and business leaders about education policy. "The primary purpose of the Listening and Learning tour is to have a national dialogue about how to best deliver a complete and competitive education to all children, from cradle through career," Duncan said in a press release. "Before crafting education law in Washington, we want to hear from people across America -- parents, teachers, administrators -- about the everyday issues and challenges in our schools that need our national attention and support." Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is a graduate of St. Michael's College and he helped arrange for Duncan's visit to Vermont for the commencement speech. He said he wanted the state to be included in the debate as Congress moves ahead with rewriting the federal education law. "This is a perfect opportunity for Vermont to get early input into the discussions about reforming education support programs like No Child Left Behind," said Leahy. "On this visit he will be able to hear directly from Vermonters and to see some of the innovative projects that are underway here. I feel strongly that smaller states like ours have experiences and conditions that need to be fully considered when education reforms are debated. I admire Arne Duncan and appreciate his uncommon energy and enthusiasm, and I want his ideas and Vermont's experience to rub off on each other. " In West Virginia Tuesday, Duncan met with a special education teacher who said that the standardized tests required by No Child Left Behind leave her students feeling demoralized and frustrated. "They feel so good about themselves, and then they look at a two-paragraph reading passage, and they know six words," Bunker Hill Elementary teacher Lynn Reichard told Duncan. "I have one child here that's a non-reader, and she's going to have to take the test, and she's going to cry. There's just got to be another answer for that." Vermont Department of Education spokeswoman Jill Remick said details are still being worked out about Duncan's visit and she didn't know who would have access to the education secretary while he was here. She confirmed that the Secretary of Education was going to try to visit at least one Vermont school. "It should all be ironed out in a couple of days," said Remick. "We're excited about having the opportunity to speak with him." The state board of education is in the middle of its own initiative to look at how education is delivered across Vermont. The board has said that major changes have to carried out to better prepare students for the 21st century and education commissioner Armando Vilaseca said Duncan's visit will be a good opportunity to show what is happening in the Vermont school system. "His focus on school reform, which echoes the transformation work we are doing in our state, confirms that we need to continue to push for a world class, accessible education for all of our students," Vilaseca said. "We hope that his visit gives him a taste of the good work going on in our classrooms. We also hope he gets a flavor for how national laws are implemented in small rural schools like some that we have in Vermont." |
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