Duncan with a great op ed in the NY Daily News, drawing from the brilliant speech he gave recently (http://edreform.blogspot.com/2010/08/secretary-arne-duncans-remarks.html):

Needless to say, concerns are running very high in Los Angeles - not only among teachers themselves but also among a wide spectrum of administrators, academics and reformers who question the validity of the scores and the value of the entire exercise.

Still others worry about parents with a limited understanding of what this information really means jockeying to place their children with the highest-ranking teachers.

I am a strong advocate for transparency. If it were up to me and the law allowed it, I would put out student attendance data and hold parents accountable. And while we're at it, let's put out funding and facilities data and hold school boards and politicians accountable.

Let's put out data on dropouts, college enrollment, college completion and every other kind of data that can help us highlight our remarkable success and help us better understand why too many of our children are unprepared.

The truth can be hard to swallow but it can only make us better, stronger and smarter.

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Let's unleash all data on teachers: U.S. secretary of education asks, What's there to hide?

BY Arne Duncan

Sunday, August 29th 2010, 4:00 AM

www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/08/29/2010-08-29_lets_unleash_all_data_on_teachers.html#ixzz0y5d43AF4