It's Arne Duncan.

[LWolf]

So much for hope, so much for positive change.

[femmocrat]

1. I was so disappointed in this choice.

I spent the day reading about him.... he is not even an educator. NEA and AFT are giving him kudos, but I'm disappointed in them too!
I think they are trying to "kiss up" to the new secretary without taking a hard critical look at his "accomplishments" in Chicago.

I just wish Obama would have chosen a bona fide educator who came up through the classroom, instead of his Harvard basketball buddy who looks more like a republican-lite with his businesslike approach to managing a school district.

I know, I know, the Chicago school district has monumental problems and has for ages, but firing teachers, administrators, and touting charter schools is the republican way of doing things. What's next, vouchers???

[LWolf]

5. Disappointed?

I was, and am, enraged. But not surprised. :grr:

The NEA and the AFT don't want to alienate those they will be groveling to for scraps over the next 4-8 years, so they aren't going to take a stand.

The AFT tends to be more conservative than the NEA, so I didn't expect anything from them, anyway.

If the NEA were going to take a stand in opposition to a politician, they wouldn't have endorsed Obama when HRC dropped out. He's never pretended to be teacher-friendly. Now that he's going to be in office, they won't want to burn bridges, which is probably the politically smart thing.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. I'm trying to find out about him on another thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4664597&mesg_id=4664597

Sounds like more the same. Can you direct me to more info re. Arne? Also, where do his kids go to school.... IF they go to school?

[femmocrat]

3. Sorry, I don't know.

I just followed some links in articles I found on the web. I started with a Google search. Some of the biographical info was also linked in the same DU thread. There was a good article from a Chicago newspaper that was critical of his "achievements" in Chicago schools. The percentages by which he raised test scores, graduation rates, and college attendance were not very impressive, according to that article.

Sorry, I didn't bookmark it, but you could probably find it easily.

I was really less concerned whether or not his children (if any) attended public school, than in his methods of dealing with the overwhelming problems of public schools.

[LWolf]

4. Here are a few links

to what some liberal educators have to say about Duncan. There is more than one kind of education "reform," and Duncan is on the more conservative side, to say the least. I've got to get the ice off of my truck and head to work.

http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2008/12/arne-duncan-privatizer-union-buster-and.html

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=318

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=122