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MEDIA WATCH: Wall Street Journal bids farewell to Arne Duncan, chides Obama for not privatizing everything...

George N. Schmidt - October 05, 2015

By the time Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the changing of the guard at the nation's third largest school system, the cynical manipulation of "diversity" criteria was evident on the stage set for the media. While the power was remaining in the hands of the mayor, Emanuel made sure, as usual, that he had the partial example of "Rahm's Rainbow" arrayed for the TV cameras. Above, from left to right, Denise Little, Jason Ervin, Frank Clark, David Vitale, Forrest Claypool, and Rahm Emanuel. There was no explanation why one alderman was in the photograph (except that the media event took place in his ward). In order to provide the partial diversity needed to keep that version of reality in place, Emanuel announced that Denise Little (far left) received a meaningless promotion at CPS. At the same time, corporate Chicago was represented by Frank Clark, whose entire public life has been devoted to charterization and privatatization (there is even a Noble charter school "campus" named after Clark). Left out of the public discussion of the corruption at CPS has also been the question of why at least one of the leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union praised Barbara Byrd Bennett, literally up to the eve of the indictments, and tried to thwart a challenge to Ervin's corrupt work on the West Side. The Wall Street Journal updated the world on its education agenda in an October 5, 2015 editorial about Arne Duncan's departure as U.S. Secretary of Education and John King's arrival in the Cabinet. Amazingly, given all the destructive privatization under Arne, the voice of globalization and "free market capitalism" is critical of Arne.

The Lost Education Opportunity

President Obama made a fine choice on Friday in John King, a charter school advocate, to be his next Secretary of Education. Then again Arne Duncan, who is returning to Chicago at the end of the year after seven years as Secretary, also arrived with much promise only to run afoul of the antireform inertia in the Democratic Party.

Mr. King has been a senior adviser to Mr. Duncan since last year and before that was state education commissioner in New York, where he pushed for higher standards. This made him unpopular with unions, which these days ought to be a requirement for any education leadership position. Mr. King helped found one of Massachusetts�s top charters, Roxbury Prep, and later moved to New York to help launch the Uncommon Schools charter-school network.

It�s nonetheless hard to be optimistic that Mr. King can accomplish much in the waning days of the Obama Presidency, especially after Mr. Duncan�s experience. Mr. Duncan did well to promote charter schools and high standards. His Race to the Top initiative used federal dollars to catalyze reform in the states, especially by encouraging them to hold teachers accountable for student performance.

Yet such progress was overshadowed by his unwillingness to fully take on the union-backed status quo. When Democrats in Congress killed a scholarship program that gave poor kids in the nation�s capital a shot at a decent school, Mr. Duncan remained on the sidelines. He was also mute when the Justice Department sued Louisiana because its voucher program helped poor minority kids by letting them attend schools that didn�t have enough whites.

Mr. Duncan�s worst legacy is the Administration�s assault on for-profit higher education. He promoted the takeover of most student loans, piling up a trillion dollars in new federal liabilities. And his department, at White House insistence, has driven a �gainful

employment� rule that targets for-profit schools whose graduates don�t meet the arbitrary debt-to-earnings level the Education Department thinks they should have.

The rule doesn�t apply to the nonprofits and community colleges that often do even worse by employment, confirming a glaring double standard. Some of Mr. Duncan�s admirers say he was merely going along with an agenda driven by the White House and Capitol Hill liberals, but the result has hurt minority and lower-income adults who benefit from the flexible schedules and job-focused skills that for-profits can provide.

The Obama Presidency has been disappointing on many counts, but education is its biggest lost opportunity. The nation�s first African-American President had unique standing and moral capital to remake the politics of education. Mr. Obama might have united reformers on the right and left into a movement that empowered parents to choose the best school for their children regardless of their location or income. It might have been a unifying issue and a great legacy.

But he opted for tepid, and now his main K-12 legacy will be having presided over the unwinding of President George W. Bush�s bipartisan No Child Left Behind reform. We were no fans of that law, but at least it elevated higher standards and performance measurement regardless of background. Those principles are now under assault by unions on the left and populists on the right.

One sign of how this debate has moved backward: The nation�s two largest teachers unions have already endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. Mr. King looks to be a short-timer even if Democrats keep the White House in 2016.

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