Obama chooses education secretary

Wednesday 17th December, 04:42 AM JST

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timorborder at 01:51 PM JST - 17th December

Please refrain from calling GW Bush a terrorist. An "errorist" perhaps....

Hearing all this talk about Obama putting his "team" together brings back memories of GW at the start of his term. Remember the terms "compassionate conversatism" and "no child left behind." What a mess. Education is another another area in which GW fundamentally failed the population.

Then again, for all his mistakes, GW did have the economy, until the lack of oversight brought things to a crashing halt.

Anyway, I hope the new cabinet and the new President will start to put things right.
TooFarGone at 01:57 PM JST - 17th December

"Education is another another area in which GW fundamentally failed the population."

And you know this because what? - you live in the US?
Nippon5 at 03:15 PM JST - 17th December

As far as a working education system.. umm yea ok what president has provided a good model so far?
Sarge at 03:24 PM JST - 17th December

"the disaster bush made of education"

What is this disaster you speak of, smith? Heck, the federal government is spending more on education than ever before.

"not the best choice... could also be a lot better"

McCain would have made a better choice for Education Secretary. Oh, well.
ptolemy at 04:00 PM JST - 17th December

Being from Chicago, and seeing the state of Chicago schools, this was not the best choice. Actually one of the reasons my wife and I moved to Japan, give our daughter and international education, and the international schools in Nagoya are some of the best in Japan.

Chicago still scores near the bottom of school districts in the USA for scholastic achievement, but is always near the top for drop out rates. Duncan improved none of these during his watch.
Helter_Skelter at 04:56 PM JST - 17th December

The quality of education in the US has been inversely proportional to the amount of funding for the Department of Education. I'd say it's time to get the federal government out of the education business.
SezWho2 at 07:06 PM JST - 17th December

Taka313,

I agree with you about the poverty of "teaching to the test" if we are talking about liberal education. However, as a practical matter, I think tests are generally designed to determine competence with respect to solving the types of problems that we know will need to be solved. I think this is true whether you are a doctor, a surveyor or even a register operator at Walmart.

My understanding is that changes made during the last 8 years require schools to show improvement or else lose funding. In that kind of environment it is important to show positive results and I think the only way to achieve that in a short period of time is to teach to the test. A school system administrator who failed to do that could, especially in a large system like Chicago's, be seen as being irresponsible.

I think there are many problems with the Bush-era funding requirements, but whatever the game is people still have to play it. I would rather that Americans could appreciate the value of a University of Chicago style education. However, I think we may still be mired in the problem of teaching people how to balance their checkbooks.
Taka313 at 09:33 PM JST - 17th December

Sez, What you are saying about teaching to the test is good in theory, but what I'm seeing here, at least where I live, is that the test is the only thing taught and in many places, in order to assure continued funding, the bar for success has become somewhat "fluid."

Taka
SezWho2 at 10:59 PM JST - 17th December

Taka313,

I agree that if the test is the only thing being taught, that's a bad thing. And what you say about the bar for success being fluid is what has many educators tearing their hair out.

If you are saying that Duncan believes this is OK, then I would agree with you about the inappropriateness of selecting him. I guess what I am saying is that I don't know if Duncan believes in teaching to the test as an educational principle or whether he believes in it as a financial necessity in a larger structure in which he has no input.
smithinjapan at 11:35 PM JST - 17th December

sarge: "What is this disaster you speak of, smith? Heck, the federal government is spending more on education than ever before."

Simply throwing money at a problem does not ensure its solution, my boy. The fact of the matter is that, regardless of spending, the 'no child left behind' initiative by bush and co. failed miserably, and a whole lot MORE children got left behind. Heck, even Helter_Skelter admits the amount of money being dumped into education isn't helping.

Anyway, I agree with timorborder's sentiments in hoping things improve with Obama. Again, they can't get any worse than what Americans have had for 8 years, but it's going to be a long road to repair the damage.

TooFarGone: "And you know this because what? - you live in the US?"

Clearly, you don't have to be American to know more about the country's system and politics than many Americans do. In fact, you guys are often too close to the source to be objective, and need a little reminder from time to time of how things really are.
Sarge at 11:37 PM JST - 17th December

I see Obama was chosen as Time's Person of 2008. Time says "In one of the craziest elections in American history..."

I agree. In fact it was so crazy, Obama ended up being elected.
Sarge at 11:42 PM JST - 17th December

smith... Just because ONE education program hasn't worked out perfectly doesn't mean the American education system is a "disaster." If it were, we wouldn't have all these foreigners trying to get into our schools here.
smithinjapan at 12:36 AM JST - 18th December

sarge: "smith... Just because ONE education program hasn't worked out perfectly doesn't mean the American education system is a "disaster." If it were, we wouldn't have all these foreigners trying to get into our schools here."

True, but remember the other day your examples of 'ONE' usually mean quite a few; like the ONE guy you said didn't like bush because he threw his shoes, and ended up being millions around the world who didn't like him and heroized the shoe-tosser! But that's beside the point.

Again, though, just because the American education system is better than Djibouti's -- it actually might not be, but I'm not sure -- doesn't mean it's not a disaster. Naturally, if it's better than said African nation's (you'll notice Africa here is the continent, not a certain politician's country), people from said nation will try to go there for a better education than what they have. Again, doesn't mean the US system isn't in disarray, and that disarray is in part due to bush's failures.

Obama will make it right for you, though... or at least, he'll make it better.
EurajReturns at 01:41 AM JST - 18th December

Smith said:

True, but remember the other day your examples of 'ONE' usually mean quite a few; like the ONE guy you said didn't like bush because he threw his shoes, and ended up being millions around the world who didn't like him and heroized the shoe-tosser! But that's beside the point.

Not beside the point at all. One bad school in the United States does indeed, reflect many, many others around the country. I've seen my fair share of awfullness myself, so it does not need to be proven to me. Nevertheless, seeing "ONE" good school that draws the envy and attendance of foreingers from around the world reflect several others like it around the country. I'd expect the educational system of the strongest nation in the world to rank higher than 18th, but I have to acknowledge that here, I'm seeing your persnickety reprobations being farther off the mark than usual. The U.S. isn't the best, but it certainly doesn't deserve for you to try to drag it to the bottom.

I'm hopeful that Obama's Administration will help stop the slippage as well.
SuperLib at 08:58 AM JST - 18th December

heh smith do you have any opinion about Duncan besides the fact that he wasn't chosen by Bush and Bush is horrible and there's no proof the US isn't the worst and Obama will make it better?

Here's some information about Duncan's track record:

http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/index.php?item=2514&cat=5

This is a pretty good article:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/content/education/chi-obama-duncandec16,0,1498557.story?page=1

Looks like he's somewhat of a compromise candidate. He's tried a few changes, some being hit and miss. But most people give him credit for trying. Overall graduation rates have improved, but he's also closed some poorly performing schools in favor of charter programs only to find that the students from the closed schools aren't going to better ones, they're just going to other schools in the system that aren't doing much better overall.