By Amy Yuen

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has named Professor Linda Darling-Hammond to the Department of Education's Equity and Excellence Commission. The commission will examine the impact of school finance on educational opportunity and recommend ways school finance can be improved to increase equity and achievement.

The commission will examine the disparities in meaningful educational opportunities that give rise to the achievement gap, with a focus on systems of finance, and recommend ways in which federal policies could address such disparities. The commission will also recommend ways to restructure school finance systems to achieve equity in the distribution of educational resources and further student achievement and attainment.

Twenty-seven education advocates, civil rights leaders, scholars, lawyers, and corporate leaders were also named yesterday to the commission. Christopher Edley, dean of UC Berkeley Law School, and School of Education alum Reed Hastings (MA '88), co-founder of Netflix, will serve as commission co-chairs. Other members of the commission include Eric Hanushek, Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a courtesy professor at the School of Education; Stanford Law Professor Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar; Kati Haycock, president of the Education Trust; Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; and Thomas Saenz, the president and general counsel of the L.A.-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

The Department formed the commission in response to a congressional request included in the fiscal year 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act. The commission will meet for the first time in public session on February 22 in Washington, D.C.

Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University where she has launched the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education and the School Redesign Network and served as faculty sponsor for the Stanford Teacher Education Program. She is a former president of the American Educational Research Association and member of the National Academy of Education. Her research, teaching, and policy work focus on issues of school restructuring, teacher quality and educational equity.