Duncan to Give Districts Shot at Race to Top

In interview, education secretary talks waivers, future plans

Flush with $550 million in new Race to the Top money, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says he intends to use most of it to design a new competition just for school districts.

“You can do different things. You can do early childhood as a piece of that, or STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] as a piece of that,” Mr. Duncan, now starting his fourth year as education secretary, said in a wide-ranging interview with Education Week last week. “I don’t want to commit, but the bulk of the money will go through districts. ... What we’ll be asking of districts is still very much up for consideration.”

Mr. Duncan also used the Jan. 17 interview to address what he sees as the strength of his department’s No Child Left Behind waiver plan, the weaknesses of congressional attempts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and his desire to stay on as secretary through a second term if President Barack Obama is re-elected—which would make him one of the...