Education Law

Duncan as Education Secretary ... Disappointing

By now you have probably seen the reports. Rumors are swirling around Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education and with the Obama team, where there is smoke there is fire so I feel pretty confident we will see a presser in the next couple days announcing this. 

As I said before, Arne Duncan was the only person on the list I was absolutely against. I don't know his background (apparently he is a basketball player and has no graduate degree in education, again!) and I have certainly never met him, but after the Rod Paige and Margaret Spellings homer picks from Texas, the one criteria I would not budge on with this pick was that it not be from Illinois. With all the qualified candidates throughout the entire United States, why in the world do presidents insist on bringing in their home state players in education? I thought the Duncan pick was probably dead after the Illinois debacle of the past week, but apparently not. I also thought Obama's pick for Energy, a world renown scientist, signaled a respect for demonstrated expertise, but apparently not.   

I may have more to say on the pick over the next couple weeks as this plays out, but for now I am just sort of disgusted that the transition team picked an education chief that works only a mile away from their headquarters in Chicago. Highly disappointing.  

Full post as published by Edjurist on December 15, 2008 (boomark / email).