As a new school year begins, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan plans to use waivers to rewrite parts of the nation’s signature federal education law, whose reauthorization has been stalled in Congress. Meanwhile, states are struggling to meet their ambitious Race to the Top goals as they look for ways to cut spending. I sat down with the former head of the Chicago school system to talk about these issues as well as how he pressured the Iowa governor not to cut his state’s pre-kindergarten program and set a low bar for the academic side of college athletics.

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