Obama’s Education Secretary Pick is a Disappointment

by Lisa Schiff via Beyond Chron

Thu, Dec 18, 2008 7:35AM

Thursday, December 18, 2008 : President-elect Barak Obama dealt public education supporters what is potentially the first of many blows by choosing Chicago Public Schools (CPS) head Arne Duncan as his Secretary of Education. Duncan, a lawyer by background and an educator only by virtue of assuming the tellingly named “Chief Executive Officer” position of CPS is a tremendous disappointment to all who were hoping for a dramatic change from the drastically failed policies of the Bush Administration with its destructive No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.

Instead we’ve been given a high-powered, high-profile staffer who has reduced education to standardized test performance and who is accountable not to the parents and students of Chicago – but to his boss, Mayor Richard Daley, as Chicago’s school district has been run by the Mayor since 1995 when he was granted the authority to appoint the CEO and the membership of the school board. This is not what we hoped for, but given public education’s low-level of importance on Obama’s platform is not surprising. Once again, education is being used as political chit.

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