Weighing in on Duncan

There is a great deal of news and blog posts on various sites about President Elect Obama's choice for Education Sec, Arne Duncan, as if the Ed Sec is of any real importance.

People, please relax. The Sec Ed is a largely ceremonial post, its not like the Dept of Education has any real effect upon the outcomes of public education. Whomever Obama chooses, that person's personality and/or qualifications for the position are far less important than the politics involved.

Rather than asking whether so and so is going to make a good appointee, you should be asking how politics is going to effect the near future of the education establishment. President Elect Obama is a Democrat, and is beholden to the national Teacher unions which are big supporters of the Democrat party. The teacher unions very much expect repayment for their support of the Democrat candidates in the recent election.

What do the teacher unions want? Top of the list is repeal or total dilution of NCLB.

Other factors? Oh yes, Democrats have control of both houses of Congress, meaning the road is pretty clear if leadership chooses to travel it.

Any new Sec Ed is going to have the job of enabling legislation to repeal/dilute NCLB, or he is going to be the man who has to explain to the unions why they aren't going to get the support expected from the new administration. Either way it is a PR job that is not going to be much fun.

And if you really care about education progress, you will focus on the basics of education and resolving the problems of delivery, rather than wasting time worrying what politicians are going to do in the arena. After all, there is only one group less successful than public education...and you don't really expect good results from politicians, do you?

Whatever you think about Mr. Duncan, he is going to be doing exactly what the Administration wants on the major issues. So, who cares?