OBAMA PASSES ON TENENBAUM, TAPS DUNCAN FOR DOE

Children and parents everywhere breathed a sigh of relief today as President-elect Barack Obama didn’t choose former South Carolina Schools Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum to head the U.S. Department of Education.

Instead, Obama went with Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan, meaning there’s still a chance that American schools won’t suffer from the same failed policies that plagued Tenenbaum’s tenure.

Mr. Duncan, who has been Chicago’s top school official for seven years, has overseen the closure of struggling schools, advocated merit pay for better teachers, and adopted a program to use private money to reward children for better grades.

He has straddled two competing factions of the education community: the teachers unions, who push for more funding and smaller classes, and a movement that favors accountability and free-market-style incentives and looks to hold schools and teachers more accountable for student performance. [Wall Street Journal]

OK, on second thought, this guy is probably about as bad of a choice as Tenenbaum. He might actually be worse given that he comes from Obama’s overtly-corrupt Chicago political machine.