Say Anything Blog

Obama’s pick for Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, said in his acceptance speech that he’s “eager to apply some of the lessons we have learned here in Chicago to help school districts all across our country.”

Given this, let’s hope he’s not serious.

In 2007, only 17 percent of eighth graders tested at or above grade level in reading in Chicago Public Schools – the school system administered by Arne Duncan since 2001.
President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday tapped Duncan to become secretary of education in the upcoming administration.

Duncan, hailed by Obama as a reformer, said he would like to take the lessons he learned in Chicago with him when he moves to Washington. “I’m also eager to apply some of the lessons we have learned here in Chicago to help school districts all across our country,” Duncan said after Obama formally named him to the job in Chicago.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) report for 2007, Chicago public schools have consistently performed below the national average during Duncan’s tenure.

Per the Wall Street Journal, it looks like Duncan was picked instead of someone intent on real education reform to please the unions:

The three most innovative urban school chiefs are Michelle Rhee of the District of Columbia, Paul Vallas of New Orleans and Joel Klein of New York City. Had Senator Obama picked any of these, the unions would have gone to the mattresses in opposition. Arne Duncan is thus a compromise choice, and we will have more to say later on his record in Chicago. We know from experience, though, that any genuine school reformer eventually arrives at crunch time with these unions, and either confronts them or gives up.

Do Democrats do anything without first running it by their Big Labor masters?

Frankly, I’m wondering why we even have a federal education agency.  Isn’t education a state issue?