Education Secretary Arne Duncan will speak at 6 p.m. tonight at the Statehouse Convention Center as part of the Frank and Kula Kumpuris Distinguished Lecture series.

He plans to make news by calling for disclosure of test score data differentiated by indidvidual teachers.

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U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will call for all states and school districts to make public whether their instructors are doing enough to raise students’ test scores and to share other school-level information with parents, according to a text of a speech he is scheduled to make Wednesday.

“The truth is always hard to swallow, but it can only make us better, stronger and smarter,” according to remarks he plans to deliver in Little Rock, Ark. “That’s what accountability is all about — facing the truth and taking responsibility.”

The lack of public accountability in California’s schools compared with those in some other states could have been a factor Tuesday in the state’s failure to win any money in the federal government’s competitive Race to the Top education grant program.

There’s more:

In addition to test score information, Duncan will also advocate releasing data on school funding and college completion and student loan default rates, among other things, as ways to increase public awareness about schools and teacher performance.

“If it was up to me and the law allowed it, I would put out student attendance data and hold parents accountable,” he will say.

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