Free Republic

Joshua Dunn notes why Education Secretary Duncan's proposed civil rights "reinforcement" is not only misguided, but will ultimately lose in the courts if it comes to that: This is the same Department of Education that can’t support a voucher program in Washington DC to help minority children escape the grinding incompetence of the DC school system. Now it wants to spend its resources determining whether schools in Fairfax County or Westchester have a disproportionate number of white kids in college prep classes. Someone’s priorities seem misplaced. Even Nixon would blush. Second, it’s hard to see how Duncan can do this...

As mentioned yesterday, the Obama administration is going to begin looking "more intently" at civil rights in our public schools, notably disproportionate discipline rates, [lack] of access to college prep courses, and that 'ol "disparate impact" nonsense. Roger Clegg, who's usually dead-on about the effects of ... stuff like this, notes: ...the easy way out for schools -- and what school bureaucrat won't prefer the easy way out -- is to make sure the numbers pass muster, i.e., to make discipline decisions based not solely on the merits, but also on the basis of race. And since administrators aren't likely...

"One of the most erudite, prolific and acidic critics of national education policy." That's how the Washington Post memorialized Gerald Bracey shortly after his death in late October. One of his regular targets was President Obama's basketball buddy, US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. In an eerie parting shot from waaaay off-court, Bracey just slam-dunked Duncan. At the time of his death. Bracey was about to publish an article about the Save-A-Life Foundation's (SALF) relationship with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) when Duncan was in charge. "The Skeleton in Arne Duncan's Closet" was supposed to appear on Halloween in Bracey's...

VIDEO: Arne Duncan appears as "animated pitchman" for the Save-A-Life Foundation, ABC7 Chicago, 11/17/06 PHOTO: Ronald McDonald, Save-A-Life founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri, and Arne Duncan The Skeleton in Arne Duncan's Closet by Gerald W. BraceyEducation critic Jerry Bracey had just finished this column when he died on Oct. 20. He had planned to release it at his Huffington Post blog on Halloween. Hence the rattling skeletons theme. Click here to read an October 23, 2009 Washington Post obituary/tribune to Bracey.Halloween season is an appropriate time to talk about rattling skeletons in the closet. US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appears...