Duncan was raised in Hyde Park, Chicago, where his father Starkey Duncan was a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, and mother Susan Morton runs The Sue Duncan Children's Center for African American youth on Chicago's South Side. Duncan spent a great deal of his free time at his mother's center tutoring children and sharpening his basketball skills with the neighborhood children. Some of his childhood friends were John W. Rogers, Jr., CEO of Ariel Capital Management (now Ariel Investments) and founder of the Ariel Academy, Illinois Senator Kwame Raoul, actor Michael Clarke Duncan, singer R. Kelly and martial artist Michelle Gordon. Duncan's spoken accent at this time led at least one college basketball coach to assume that he was of African-American descent.[1]
Education
Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, where he aspired to a future career coaching basketball or playing the sport professionally.[2] He then graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a degree in sociology in 1987. His senior thesis, for which he took a year's leave to do research in Kenwood, in inner-city Chicago, was entitled The values, aspirations and opportunities of the urban underclass. Though unpublished, it was later cited by other authors.
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Harvard Basketball
At Harvard, Duncan was relegated to the junior varsity basketball squad his first year by coach Frank McLaughlin, but later became co-captain of the varsity team and named a first team Academic All-American.
[6][7] As a freshman, Duncan narrowly lost to a Duke team that included future NBA player and Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins, as well as Tommy Amaker, who was himself later to become Harvard's basketball coach.[8][9] As a senior and co-captain, Duncan scored 20 points against then nationally-ranked Duke team, while Duke's Danny Ferry, a future NBA star (and brother of Duncan's former Harvard teammate Bob Ferry) was held to a mere 15 points.[10]
Professional basketball career
From 1987 to 1991, Duncan played professional basketball in Australia with the Eastside Spectres of the National Basketball League,[11] and while there worked with children who were wards of the state. He also played with the Rhode Island Gulls and tried out for the New Jersey Jammers.[12] While in Tasmania he met his future wife, Karen.
Education career
Duncan has extensive experience in educational policy and management, but has not been a teacher. In 1992, Duncan became director of the Ariel Education Initiative, a program to enhance educational opportunities for children on Chicago's South Side that was started by John W. Rogers, Jr., and in 1998 he joined the Chicago Public Schools.[13] He became Deputy Chief of Staff for former Schools CEO Paul Vallas in 1999.[14] In 1996, along with Rogers, he was part of a network that funded and supported Ariel Community Academy.[15]
Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed Duncan to serve as CEO of Chicago Public Schools on June 26, 2001.[16]
He was a fellow in the Leadership Greater Chicago's class of 1995, and a member of the Aspen Institute's Henry Crown Fellowship Program, Class of 2002. In May 2003, he received an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Lake Forest College.
Mr. Duncan as of December 16, 2008 has been tapped to be the Secretary of Education in the Obama Administration.[17]
