I don't see him as having a set of firm convictions on public education. Or even a coherent philosophy.
I really don't think he's given it much thought. He hasn't had to; he's never been in an American PS as a student and his kids have never been in an American ps.
His public pronouncements are merely regurgitations of modern corporate school "reform" cliches.
Problem is... ( one of the problems)... he's surrounded by folks like himself: children of the upper-middle class and political elite who are as (experientially) clueless as he is.
So he's a blank slate.A tabula rasa. So he probably DOES think that Duncan is some kind of "expert". (After all.... he had that political appt. Chicago machine job as CEO of the school system there.)
Duncan resigning would make a difference if he were replaced w. someone who had some idea of how complex the problems of urban public education really are and had the training and background to do something REAL about them.
I'd regard that as at least a "gesture". I WANT to support Obama. *WANT* to. But he's making it impossible for me to do so. Every day I have to go to work and deal with this:
>>frivolous school closings, $$$ mismanagement of all varieties, union-busting, teacher harassment, privatization, economic and racial stratification promoted and accelerated by privatization, testing-abuse, data manipulation ( including but not limited to cheating) and ....most heinous of all.... the creation of a new, gigantic, impenetrable, patronage-heavy, school "reform" bureaucracy.>>
I'm not sending any money to *anyone* to support ANY of this crap. Even if I wanted to I couldn't do it.
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