Obama seems to pick failures like himself. He is going after Romney's taxes but he picked a Treasury Secretary who DIDN'T PAY HIS TAXES and blamed it on TurboTax!

I do not understand where this article you linked indicates that he was a failure. "This month, the mathematics report card was delivered: Chicago trailed several cities in performance and progress made over six years. For more than seven years, starting in 2001, Duncan tried to rejuvenate his city's struggling schools: jettisoning staff, hiring turnaround specialists, shutting down those deemed beyond hope. He pushed a back-to-basics curriculum, spawned dozens of charter schools and experimented with performance pay. State and federal test scores and graduation rates rose on his watch, and Chicago became a laboratory for innovation"

It says that as a result of his efforts, State and federal test scores and graduation rates rose on his watch, and Chicago became a laboratory for innovation. Aren't higher test scores and higher graduate rates good? When did education become golf?

" The federal readout is just one measure of Duncan's record as chief executive of the nation's third-largest system. Others show advances on various fronts. But the new math scores signal that Chicago is nowhere near the head of the pack in urban school improvement, even though Duncan often cites the successes of his tenure as he crusades to fix public education.

"Chicago is not the story of an education miracle," said Chester E. Finn Jr. of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank in Washington. "It is, however, the story of a large urban system that has made some gains and has made some promising structural changes." "
"Yet questions have arisen this year about the magnitude of Duncan's accomplishments. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which represents business, professional, education and cultural leaders, concluded in June that gains on state test scores were inflated when Illinois relaxed passing standards and that too many students still drop out of high school or graduate unprepared for college. The Consortium on Chicago School Research, a nonpartisan group at the University of Chicago, reported in October that Duncan's closure of low-performing schools often shuffled students into comparable schools, yielding little or no academic benefit."

" In the North Lawndale neighborhood west of downtown, dotted by decaying rowhouses and apartments, Johnson Elementary School was given a new staff this year and renamed the Johnson School of Excellence. Duncan, in one of his last actions before leaving Chicago, proposed the restart in January because of the school's perennially low test scores. The nonprofit Academy for Urban School Leadership, which pairs master's degree candidates with teaching mentors in a residency program, runs the school and 13 others under contract. Johnson serves 300 students from pre-K through grade 8.

In the last school year, officials said, police were called to the campus nearly every day to deal with angry parents or disruptive students. "

"It was a war scene," said Jennifer Earthley, mother of a fourth-grader and a fan of the new regime. "The administrators were afraid of the children. The children did what they wanted to do. We have been on the low end for a long time. All we have been looking for is a passionate group of people who care."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR2009122802368_2.html?sid=ST2009122901085
Reading is fundamental.

So again. Test scores went up overall under Duncan's initiatives. But he was a failure.This is stated by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which has been noted to be "part of the ideological structure of the anti-public-education movement, noting its granting of awards to strong proponents of the privatization/abolition of public education."

Congenital Bias:
The classic assumption in selective exposure research is that
people are motivated to defend their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors from challenges (e.g., Festinger, 1957; Olson & Stone, 2005).
In attitude theory (e.g., Albarracı´n, Johnson, & Zanna, 2005; Eagly
& Chaiken, 1993; Zanna & Rempel, 1988), attitude is defined as
the individual’s evaluation of an entity (an issue, person, event,
object, or behavior; e.g., President Obama); belief is defined as an
association between an entity and an attribute or outcome (e.g.,
President Obama is honest); and behavior is defined as an overt
action performed in relation to an entity (e.g., voting for President
Obama). Selective exposure enables people to defend their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors by avoiding information likely to
challenge them and seeking information likely to support them.
Selectivity of this type has often been called a congeniality bias
(e.g., Eagly & Chaiken, 1993, 1998, 2005) but has also been called
a confirmation bias (e.g., Jonas, Schulz-Hardt, Frey, & Thelen,
2001). In this article, we use the term congeniality bias.

I'm going to do you a solid and provide evidence of an unsuccessful program under Arne Duncan in Chicago. Please note the rigorous study design and lack of bias in reporting.

http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/pdfs/education/tap_yr2_rpt.pdf

Oh please! Educate your self. There are hundreds of stories about his failures in Chicago. You pick one line or two out of hundreds. Look at Chicago schools today and tell me if you think they are educating the children. Do you need me to provide more on the subject since you seem to be short on curiosity?

Please do not say that I am uneducated. I have only disagreed with your sources of information. In 5 minutes I have managed to:
1) Disprove a claim that you posted as a result of political bias and lack of factual data
2) Prove congenital bias in your opinion
3) Prove one of your claims: regarding a program fostered under Arne Duncan which was deemed unsuccessful using an unbiased source and sufficient data.

Badstats, I could post stories all day about Duncan's failure in Chicago. The Peter Principle is well used by his boss.

Read this report. https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzZWF0dGxlZWR1Y2F0aW9uMjAxMHxneDozOTFlOTdkMWUyZmNkZmNk

"For Arne Duncan’s record, I would recommend going through Catalyst’s In-Depth report of his Renaissance 2010, the plan that he rolled out as CEO of the Chicago Public School system. He heralded his plan as a success and his appointment to Secretary of Education was based on this so-called “success”.

He then took that model of Renaissance 2010 and projected it onto school districts around the country, re-titling it “Race to the Top”. The results of this expensive effort has been mixed, at best.

Another interesting and informative article on Arne Duncan’s Renaissance 2010 plan describing how and why it developed in Chicago was published in Rethinking Schools. The full version can be found at Common Dreams.org."

U. of C. report says CPS reforms have failed many students
Duncan, Vallas dispute criticism, tout progress

For the last two decades, Chicago's public school system has been a laboratory of education reform and experimentation, but it has delivered only marginal improvement in student performance, according to a report to be released today by a University of Chicago consortium.

While graduation rates have risen significantly, the report details how three eras of leadership at Chicago Public Schools failed to prepare elementary and middle school students for high school, putting them at long odds of entering college.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-09-30/news/ct-met-cps-reforms-0930-20110930_1_terry-mazany-cps-jean-claude-brizard

If you were really curious about this topic you could find and read these many many stories for yourself.

wow! Educate yourself as a term to mean read about Duncan, not implying your uneducated overall.

"Touted Chicago School Reform A Failure: Report 07/31/09 06"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/30/touted-chicago-school-ref_n_223555.html
"Crain's Chicago Business:

Chicago Public School reform largely has failed, with the vast bulk of students either dropping out or unprepared for college and apparent gains at the grade-school level more perceived than real.

That's the bott"m line of a blockbuster report released Tuesday by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club, a report that directly challenges the legitimacy of one of Mayor Richard M. Daley's major claimed accomplishments.""

http://truth-out.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=7205:affirmative-action-for-school-reformers

" To see this point, let's start at the top. Last fall, Thomas Friedman devoted one of his columns to the failure of the US education system. The frame is a trip to Chicago where he met with its new mayor, Rahm Emanuel and several business executives, all of whom complained about how the city's schools were not producing graduates who were qualified to fill the jobs that were being created. (There is good reason to question their assertions.)

Friedman bemoaned the fact that the kids in the Chicago school system couldn't get the skills needed to work in a modern factory. He told readers Mayor Emanuel has plans to fix the system, but it would take time.

Those wondering what sort of dunderhead left Chicago's schools in such awful shape need look no further than the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. Duncan headed up Chicago's school system from June of 2001 until he left to join the Obama administration in January of 2009. If Chicago's schools really are as bad as Friedman claims, then Duncan would certainly have to take much of the blame."

This is great because I have not even given my opinion on the subject. I will not give my opinion either.

Please carry on attacking people's personal character and opinions by citing secondary sources.

From YOUR link : FINDINGS. After the second year of CPS rolling out TAP, we found no evidence that the program raised student test scores. Student achievement growth as measured by average math and reading scores on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) did not differ significantly between TAP and comparable non-TAP schools.
We also found that TAP did not have a detectable impact on rates of teacher retention in the school or district during the second year it was rolled out in the district. We did not find statistically significant differences between TAP and non-TAP retention rates for teachers overall or for subgroups defined by teaching assignment and years of service in CPS. The findings of no significant impacts on student achievement or teacher retention are robust to the use of different samples and estimation methods. We did not have reliable data on the quality of teachers retained or the career paths of teachers who left TAP and non-TAP schools, but will examine these aspects of teacher mobility in future reports."

Back up there Badstats! No one is "attacking people's personal character". It seems you are unaware of Duncan's tenure in Chicago and that is all I said. Wait until Frank or FIFI have some words for you. Then you will understand what "attacking people's personal character" is about.

I'm just going to re-post what I wrote before. I have not claimed an opinion on Arne Duncan and his policies, and I have not said that his policies "worked" or that they did not "work". In fact, I provided evidence that points to a policy that can be considered unsuccessful, and provided a citation (link) with rigorous data and a well thought out study that supported this fact.

All I have really said is that some of the articles that you are pointing out are largely conjecture. They are not grounded in research or fact, and use high level statistics to prove or disprove nothing.

I think the public deserves better, more well-thought research and opinions from primary sources, not secondary news articles. That's why i'm here.

"Payouts have averaged just under $14,000, while approximately 300 former principals and administrators received more than $100,000 -- and as much as $250,000 -- upon their exit from the system under the policy. Some former CPS employees reportedly used the payouts to boost their pension benefits.""
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/07/chicago-public-schools-si_n_1260609.html

Hello, can you say local issue.

Oh and my wife worked in the system for years. There are a lot of good teachers, but there are also a lot of people who just like the summers off.

Convince me your under paid. I know the health care was the best we ever had.

Teddya sure has a burr under her saddle. Please read further as one link was from Huffington Post and two were from award winning newspapers, not one from Fox.
I know who the idiot is now, and it is teaching our children, heaven help them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/28/AR2009122802368.html

Do you teach your students this kind of rhetoric?? Are your students allowed to voice their own opinions, or do you shout them down when they don't agree with you?? Do you punish students who don't share your ideology? Do you stifle their creative ability to think for themselves? Cause that's not really teaching.

Is this a video of you or the way you run your classroom Teddya A?
TEACHER THREATENS STUDENT WITH ARREST FOR CRITICIZING OBAMA, Update: Teacher Suspended
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjpWaESn_9g

I know more than a few teachers. They all make near what I make and I have to put up with pictures on Facebook of them on all the exotic vacations they take every spring break and summer while I'm stuck at my desk. Teachers are not martyrs. They choose to get into the profession and they can choose to get out of it.

Agree! How much is enough?

They're not concerned with children getting an education. It's all about paying off the unions. If they think they're underpaid now, wait until they find out the union spent all of their dues money on democrat campaigns, and there's no taxpayer stimulus money left to throw away. Sooner or later you run out of other people's money.

JDI, you are correct. The majority of my family went to a private school. All students were very successful and the majority have attended college, without remedial courses. All the parents were involved with their teachers to assure success. Homework and projects were completed, and good behavior was expected. Money doesn't guarantee a sucessful school and students. Hard work by teachers, parents and students determine a successful school.

More than 20 years experience here, and I agree. Salary is way down my list of what is ailing public education.

Scott agreed!Along with a lot of cabinet positions that are just a check box to further political gain. Most cabinet secretaries only hold on to those positions less than 2 years. How can you be a productive when you get your position you are already planning an exit strategy.

Amen get rid of most government departments!!!!

The trillion dollar question is: Is education today honestly in better shape then it was in 1979?

I'm not quite old enough to say. My gut tells me education is something best left to individual states to manage.

Also, make no mistake - Republicans, not Democrats, have been in 'charge' of this department for almost the entire time. Republicans certainly didn't lack for opportunities to abolish this cabinet position.

Private industry could care less about the customer. They care about profits for themselves.

This would be an amazingly terrible idea. Just like privatizing social security. Now, if you want to talk about education managed on a state by state level, there's something more practical that wouldn't produce catatrosphic waste like the current system.

Social Security was running just fine by the Government. Until the system was abused by both parties.

"2) They are NOT printing money left and right."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheldon-filger/federal-reserve-begins-ma_b_677483.html

"In a step that will be one of the markers on the road to economic and financial catastrophe, the Federal Open Market Committee (otherwise known as the FOMC) of the Federal Reserve, made a bombshell policy decision on August 10, 2010, one fraught with dangerous long-term consequences for the American and global economy.

In a policy being dubbed QE2, the Federal Reserve's FOMC conceded that the so-called U.S. economic recovery has "slowed," and required more stimulus from the Fed. However, with federal funds interest rates now effectively at zero, the only aspect of monetary policy left is money printing. Thus, the Federal Reserve, in effect, will use its printing press to buy long-term U.S. government debt.
In its first bout of heavy quantitative easing, in the wake of the implosion of the major Wall Street investment banks in the fall of 2008, Ben Bernanke, utilizing his printing press, purchased $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities, and an additional $200 billion in debts owed by so-called government-sponsored enterprises, primarily Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. "

1) It's not the Dems job to pass a budget. It is Congress's job. Both parties, and with them so opposed to not just what, but how, cuts go in...this is why a budget hasn't been passed.

Objectively? I blame the Republicans more - but definitely not alone.

Why? Their complete unwillingness to consider any increased taxation to help with deficit reduction (see: Grover Norquist pledge). I also hear a whole lot of talk about tax 'reform' but again, nothing of substence. I got way more substance out of the Republican candidates back in the primaries.
I blame Democrats for targeting only military and other fluff. The Military needs cutting, yes...but so does domestic spending. I actually like the 'draconian' automatic cuts that are supposed to kick in. Notice how Republicans are desperately trying to save their warhawk interests.

2) They are NOT printing money left and right. QE1 wasn't much. QE2 was fairly signifigant and Bernanke has been hesitant to add QE3 for rather obvious reasons. Inflation in the truest sense isn't particularly high.

3) We are NOT Greece. I don't even know where to begin. I'd run out of space here.

"1) It's not the Dems job to pass a budget. It is Congress's job." The House HAS passed a budget or 2 Tim. Both went to the Senate and neither were even debated much less being voted on. Reid has killed 90% of all the bills sent up form the House.
"In terms of basic legislating, this year’s Senate isn’t the worst on record — but it is the second-worst, trailing only last year’s historic calcification, according to The Washington Times’ third semiannual Legislative Futility Index.

The House, meanwhile, is doing somewhat better, notching a decidedly middle-of-the-pack performance when compared with congressional records going back more than six decades, to just after World War II."

"The Senate’s historic poor performance over the last two years is so bad that last week the top Senate Democrat said he is considering trying to change the filibuster rules because it has become too easy and too common for a minority of senators to halt business. But Republicans say the Democrats’ fear of holding tough votes has kept the Senate from doing much business.
Whichever party is to blame, the result is clear: The chamber is doing less legislating now than at any other time since 1947, when data were first compiled and published.

The futility index uses basic yardsticks of activity such as time spent in session, number of pages compiled in the Congressional Record, number of bills passed and votes taken, as a proxy for activity. Numbers were taken from the Resume of Congressional Activity compiled by House and Senate clerks at the end of each month, and The Times ranked the chambers then calculated a futility score for each chamber at the halfway point of the year. Combined, they marked the 12th-slowest pace in the past 66 years. That is nine places better than last year’s showing for the two chambers together.

Frustration over the lack of action has been evident in the halls of the Capitol, where both sides readily acknowledge little is getting done — and point fingers at each other."

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, last week said that if his party keeps control of the Senate next year, he will move to change the rules to prohibit filibusters of procedural votes. Filibusters require 60 votes to end, which is a high bar to clear, and their use has become increasingly common over the past decade."
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/24/senate-succeeds-at-something-futility/

Joe: Please, Mitch McConnell may as well have been the founder of the filibuster. Reid is just giving him the same treatment now. You must have selective memory.

Again, it's a Congress failure, not an individual party.

I'm not quite sure where you are getting this 'middle of the pack' approval of the House - probably faux news. Here's a link I can actually prove though:

Congressional Job Approval - August, i.e. current:
in the mid teens.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

Also here, to prove it's not one party or the other:
http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/data_access/tag/congressional_approval.html

Republican Disapproval: 68%
Democratic Disapproval: 62%

Data for this is last month ^^^^^^

I think Strom Thurmond is the actual undefeated king of filibusters. 24 hours and 18 minutes of Strom. The movie.

You are not alone by a long shot.
Poll: Americans want fiscal problems solved before school funding goes up
"What’s more important than ensuring that children get a better education? For most Americans this election cycle, it’s the federal budget.

As President Obama continues to assail the Republican presidential ticket for pushing a budget blueprint that could cut education spending, polling data that emerged Wednesday shows that the vast majority of Americans think getting the U.S. back on solid fiscal footing trumps increasing school funding.

A survey by Gallup and the Phi Delta Kappa International education association finds that 60 percent of Americans think it’s more important to balance the federal budget than to “improve the quality of education.”

The poll indicates a seismic shift in public attitudes toward education as a national priority, at least when compared with the pressing need to slash federal spending. In 1996, Gallup asked the same question, and nearly two-thirds of Americans said that improving K-12 classrooms was more important than the budget deficit."

Joe: Are you actually quoting an imaginary poll, or did you forget how to copy/paste links?

Actually, the truth of the matter is the economy was BETTER in the 90's, when we had considerably higher taxes. One of the many terrible things GWB did was implement the Bush Tax Cuts. This alone has cost this nation nearly 2 trillion in debt over its lifespan (out of the 15.5 we're at).

If we implemented taxation at levels they were 15-20 years ago, while cutting spending - military and domestic - we'd be in far better shape down the line.

Trust me, tea party/conseravtive folks, I'm NOT a huge Obama supporter. I believe in controlled sizes of federal government. It took a lot of corruption, ass-kissing of the wealthy corporations, and backwards concepts like cutting all spending and raising no revenues from the Tea Party folks to push me away from the party.
These TP folks also seem to forget how Republican Presidents have, time and again, raised taxes with positive effects on this nation's economy.

Throw on top of this, the concept that religion (i.e. - irrationalism) seems to be taking a more prominent control of the party, and I have no rational choice but to vote for Obama at this point. It's not that he's amazing, it's that leaving the Tea Party in charge is a much, much scarier prospect. Talk about regression.

Tim, maybe you could ask a 12 year old how to do a search on the internet. OR even better you could actually read the poll and see who it was from and go find it. "Gallup and the Phi Delta Kappa International education association" are my imaginary sources.
Intellectually lazy Tim?

Joe: Who's lazier. The person who doesn't manually search keywords of someone's text in google, or the person who fails to post a link in this first place.

Quit while you are behind Joe, it's becoming apparent you simply can't hang. It's okay.

Tim, sorry I don;t post as you like. Keeping up is not a goal in my life. I would have to go backwards to catch you son.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/110th_congress

Dems were barely "in charge" of the House, and it was even in the Senate.

and we'll just agree to disagree on privatization of schools. No point debating further, I simply believe - based on my own experiences and information - that private industry is every bit as bloodsucking as any government. Except they have no more regulation then government's force them to have. If it were up to private businesses, they'd screw every customer they could legally afford to.

As far as the 111th Congress, I think they are every bit as bad as this current one. They're just awful in the opposite direction this Congress is.

Am I the only one around here who knows that the government in Washington, D.C. has nothing to do with running your schools? The major issue with any federal education movement is that there is no enforcement mechanism to keep it running and running smoothly. Ultimately the federal government has to let the State's decide how they want to implement their version of a federal idea, and the federal government then supplies the funds that would be used to implement this idea. After this approval by the federal government, the State government then funnels this money down to the local governments for distribution at the school level. Whom has in turn submitted their own plans to receive money from the feds to the State education arm.

Most/All decisions regarding funding and curriculum occur at the local level though. Why do you think academic achievement is so closely tied to socio-economic status of the local district?