Many of us haven’t often heard the name Arne Duncan. He’s a young man with an Australian wife, a seven year old daughter, and a four year old son. We hope he gets it right...

Prior to his appointment as secretary of education, Duncan served as the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools, a position to which he was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley, from June 2001 through December 2008, becoming the longest-serving big-city education superintendent in the country.

As CEO, Duncan's mandate was to raise education standards and performance, improve teacher and principal quality, and increase learning options. In seven and a half years, he united education reformers, teachers, principals and business stakeholders behind an aggressive education reform agenda that included opening over 100 new schools, expanding after-school and summer learning programs, closing down underperforming schools, increasing early childhood and college access, dramatically boosting the caliber of teachers, and building public-private partnerships around a variety of education initiatives.

Today his U.S. Department of Education issued a press release with his statement about how it intends to spend the money..

"The new funding announced today represents a significant expansion of our federal student aid programs, providing more dollars to allow more students to attend more schools," he said. The secretary noted that the proposed budget for the U.S. Department of Education would provide an additional $17 billion for Pell Grants in Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010; the current year funding is $16.2 billion, with 6.1 million students participating.(Full details on the Pell Grant are available online)

The stimulus package is also providing nearly $14 billion in tuition tax credits for middle class families, raising the credit to $2,500 from $1,800.“

Details of the FY 2010 budget proposal will be released in late April.

The current budget aims to:

Guarantee funding for the Federal Pell Grant program and ensure that grant amounts keep pace with inflation. By making funding mandatory, the Pell Grant program would eliminate uncertainty in funding from year to year, and would ensure that the grants reflect cost of living increases. Beginning with academic year 2010-2011, the Pell grant maximum would be indexed to the consumer price index plus one percent, thus ensuring that Pell grant awards would meet their original objective to cover a substantial percentage of college costs.

Make college loans reliable, stable and efficient. All new student and parent loans would be provided directly from the federal government through the same electronic system that colleges use for Pell Grants. Private sector companies would continue to perform loan collection and related services through performance-based contracts with the Department of Education.

Restructure and expand the Federal Perkins Loan Program to ensure that all colleges and universities can take part in the program. The revamped Perkins program would provide $6 billion in loans every year, a significant increase from the current $1 billion. Funds would be distributed to reward schools that provide more need-based aid to students and that maintain reasonable student costs relative to other schools in their sector. Colleges and universities participating would increase from 1,800 to 4,400.

The budget overview includes a $500 million grant program for a new federal-state-local partnership to improve retention and graduation rates, particularly for low-income college students. First Lady Michelle Obama recently visited the department to thank its employees for their hard work, and issued her own endorsement: “You couldn’t be luckier than to have as your leader Arne Duncan.”