Arne Duncan, Obama's Education Pick
Are Duncan, a great reformer or just a great point guard?
2008-12-24

It is being said now that Barack Obama's pick to serve as Secretary of Education is not an educator. Arne Duncan, more than one commentator, has noted, is a lawyer. If Shakespeare were around, he would insist that we kill Arne. Shakespeare is not around, of course, but muckraker Greg Palast is around, as are many other commentators who condemned Duncan and anyone like him before Obama nominated him to take over Education.

Palast notes that Duncan has made the Chicago school system worse. I have no idea if that is true, and many people have already challenged that opinion. However, Palast also doesn't like Duncan because conservative New York Times columnist, David Brooks, endorsed Duncan. In addition, Palast doesn't like the fact that Duncan is a "reformer"and that he is Obama's basketball playing buddy.

These are odd reasons to oppose this cabinet pick.

Black children are being thrown in the East River educationally and Palast thinks it is important that the President-elect and his nominee for Secretary of Education run the pick and roll together in their spare time. Truth is, as for education, all the old norms have to be blown up. A reformer might be the ticket. A reformer with a jump shot might be an even better ticket especially if he can change attitudes and challenge accepted notions of progress.

Washington D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee in Washington D.C. represents this ideal. Despite her abrasive style and much talked about flaws, she is destroying the notion that certain things about educational delivery must be completely saved "as is" like unions and pedagogical techniques. The only thing education should save, of course, is the children.

The facts Palast and many others are ignoring are as follows: the high school dropout rate nationwide is 50 percent and the dropout rate for black children is even higher.  This means that every black child who does graduate from high school, perhaps two or three don't finish depending upon where you are living.  American children are lagging behind in the key skill sets educationally and it has not gotten better in  years.

The many reasons for this are numerous: disorder in the classrooms, lack of authority, too many legal restrictions, too much bureaucracy, lack of resources, lack of parental involvement, community breakdown, crime, poverty, family dysfunction, too much power for teacher unions, lack of local control; the list goes on.  We will argue ourselves dizzy trying to pin the blame on something, but one thing is consistent: educational delivery in the U.S. is broken.

In Black America, things are a bit more desperate. As Charlie Parker said with his horn: now's the time. A few more generations of the current trend and the situation might become permanent. Barack Obama has recognized the overall education problem, and I cannot imagine that he promoted Duncan as his Education Secretary because Duncan knows everything about education. Duncan was hired because he is a lawyer. President-elect Obama wants the bickering between unions, educators, and parents to stop for the sake of the children.

The battle over President Bush's famous law - "No Child Left Behind" is underway already and Obama is certain a lawyer with an educational background provides the best chance to satisfy the many stakeholders battling over the future of the law. The left wants the law destroyed (what will go in its place has not been communicated by the left). The right doesn't like the law much either because it is more bureaucracy and funding that they never believed was necessary anyway.  That leaves the rest of us to decide the fate of NCLB.

Last summer, I taught a graduate level law course to PhD candidates in the School of Education at Howard University. These professionals, most of whom work in various school systems as administrators, all agreed that the law is problematic but they also agreed that the law must remain. Their argument: the law insists upon accountability. Many of them finally witnessed people being called to answer for their failings specifically because of NCLB.

This is where Duncan comes in: he is here to gather everyone at ground zero, discuss the problems with education, agree on a course of action, and move forward, all the while using the accountability of NCLB as the guide. This is his reputation in Chicago and this is why he was picked.

Whether Duncan is an educator, a reformer, a favorite of a well known  conservative columnist, or a good basketball player is petty and meaningless at this point.  The attacks upon him sound cheap considering he has yet to even get confirmed. If a lawyer like Duncan can get people talking and compromising for the sake of the children, let us have
the lawyer.

Brian Gilmore is a poet, writer and public interest lawyer based in Washington DC. He contributes frequently on politics and legislation for EbonyJet.com.