About this post , several smart reporters have written in to ask, don't I know that Arne Duncan will be the pick as Secretary of Education if Barack Obama is elected president?
Well, no, I didn't realize it was a done deal. And I have my reservations. I think Duncan is a very good superintendent, and I understand he's a personal FOBO*, but his resume has a number of drawbacks. First, while Chicago has made some moderate progress in recent years, it certainly hasn't been home to dramatic improvements. So I'm not sure he'd even have as much credibility as Rod Paige first did when he entered the office. Second, and more importantly, it's not clear that Duncan has the experience or the aptitude to be a force on Capitol Hill, which is a necessity if Team Obama wants to reauthorize the No Child Left Behind act.
Remember the days when education secretaries were former governors? Partly that's because the education reform action was happening at the state level. (You could argue that the momentum has shifted to the districts now.) But former governors have another asset going for them: they are politicians. And the Secretary of Education job is, first and foremost, a political job-garnering public will to make policy change in a political system.
It's great that Duncan shoots hoops with Obama, and that he supports charter schools, accountability, merit pay, and the rest of the school reform agenda. But who is more likely to get recalcitrant House Democrats to sign up for a rigorous NCLB: a former superintendent none of them have ever heard of, or four-time North Carolina governor Jim Hunt, who knows how to get elected in a conservative state? You do the math.
*Friend of Barack Obama
