Sources: Obama taps Chicago schools chief

President-elect plans to name Arne Duncan as his education secretary

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan to serve as education secretary, people with knowledge of the decision said Monday.

Obama planned to announce his choice Tuesday morning. Duncan has run the country's third-biggest school district for the past seven years. He has focused on improving struggling schools, closing those that fail. Obama highlighted this work by choosing for the announcement a turnaround story for Duncan �?Dodge Renaissance Academy, a school Duncan closed and then reopened.

The two had visited the school together three years ago, although they share more than an interest in education: Duncan has played pickup basketball with Obama since the 1990s. In fact, Duncan co-captained the Harvard basketball team and played professionally in Australia before his career in education.

How will Obama fix schools?
Duncan ran an education nonprofit on Chicago's South Side before working in Chicago Public Schools under former chief Paul Vallas, now the schools chief in New Orleans.

Obama's choice has been anticipated, and argued about, by education groups anxious to see what Obama will do to fix the country's ailing schools.

Obama managed throughout his campaign to avoid taking sides in the contentious debate between reform advocates and teachers' unions over the direction of education and the fate of President Bush's No Child Left Behind accountability law.

Duncan's selection may satisfy both factions. Reform advocates wanted a big-city school superintendent who, like Duncan, has sought accountability for schools and teachers. And teachers' unions, an influential segment of the party base, wanted an advocate for their members; they have said they believe Duncan is willing to work with them.

"Arne Duncan actually reaches out and tries to do things in a collaborative way," Randi Weingarten, head of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, told The Associated Press earlier this month.In the education debate, the competing sides break down over the degree to which teachers and schools should be held accountable for how kids are learning, and the role test scores should play in making that determination.

At the heart of the dispute: No Child Left Behind, the law that has grown as unpopular as George W. Bush, the outgoing president who championed it.

The reform group agrees with the law's general principle of penalties for schools if test scores fail to improve, although nearly everyone agrees the law has problems that need fixing.

The union coalition says test scores aren't the only measure, and that factors far beyond the classroom affect how well kids learn.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28244612/

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{ I have never heard of this man and know nothing about him. Perhaps Pikes has an opinion on him? What is Obama going to do about our public school system? How will he "fix" the problem? Often our schools are over crowded, ill supplied, run down with low morale and low expectations. Teachers seem to get blamed for everything. Everyone seems to agree that teachers are one of the most important and under appreciated work forces in America. Yet they still get the brunt of the criticism while parents often look at schools as nothing but a baby sitting opportunity.

There is little doubt that the system is broken and the future of our children and the nation is at stake. Something has to be done. As usual Conservatives and Liberals seem to have different views on what needs to be done. The so called "culture war" doesn't even spare our children. You would think the education of our children is the one issue that we could all be united on but that is not the case.

Can there be a plan to improve the education system that would work in high density urban areas as well as rural areas? Should we accept the idea that one system will not work for all areas of the nation and start to concentrate more on regions rather than the nation as a whole? Does an inner city school in Chicago have much in common with a country school in Montana? Can one policy work for both? For that matter does a school in Brooklyn have anything in common with one in a small town in upstate New York?

What's to be done? Where do we start? What do you think?}