U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will visit Ballou High School in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, Feb. 7, as part of Teach for America Week. He will discuss the importance of hard work and a good education, and the need for quality teachers, especially African Americans, to join those already in the classrooms. Nationwide, more than 35 percent of public school students are African American or Hispanic, but less than 15 percent of teachers are Black or Latino.
With more than 1 million teachers expected to retire in the coming years, Duncan believes that there is a historic opportunity to transform public education in America by calling on a new generation to enter the classrooms. He is working with the broader education community to strengthen and elevate the entire teaching profession so that every teacher has the support and training that he or she needs to succeed.
Teach for America’s mission is to help kids growing up in poverty get a quality education. The organization believes that even though 16 million American children face the extra challenges of poverty, an increasing body of evidence shows they can achieve at the highest levels.