A lifelong resident of Chicago, Duncan is the founder of Create Real Economic Destiny (CRED), a non-profit aimed at reducing gun violence.

[citation needed] Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools[6] and later Harvard College, where he played on the basketball team and graduated magna cum laude in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in sociology.

The team of Duncan, Jitim Young, Thomas Darrow and Craig Moore qualified to represent the United States in Moscow, Russia in the 24-country 2014 FIBA 3x3 World Championships from June 5–8.

It asks states to vie for federal education dollars by submitting proposals that include reforms such as expanding charter schools and judging teachers partly on how well their students do on standardized tests.

[23] Illinois Senator Dick Durbin condemned the Bush-Kennedy charter schools for Washington, D.C., and Duncan and Obama got the vouchers eliminated.

[citation needed] In March 2011, Duncan said 82 percent of the nation's public schools could be failing by the following year under the standards of the No Child Left Behind law.

The projection amounted to a startling spike from previous data, which showed that 37 percent of schools were on track to miss targets set by the law.

[26] On July 13, 2014, the American Federation of Teachers approved a resolution calling for Education Secretary Arne Duncan to resign if he does not improve under a plan to be implemented by President Barack Obama.

[citation needed] On October 2, 2015, Duncan announced he would be stepping down at the close of 2015, to be succeeded by John King Jr.[28] The media stated his tenure had been marked by a "willingness to plunge head-on into the heated debate about the government's role in education.

[31] In 2021, Duncan endorsed Deborah Kerr, his former high school teacher, in the non-partisan race for Superintendent of Public Instruction of Wisconsin.