A Dumb Jock Needs to Go Back to the Basketball Court

No matter how much criticism Arne Duncan gets, he ignores it, especially criticism from teachers. And no matter how wrong his ideas are, he continues to spout them all over the country. His "Race to the Top" policy is a thousand times worse than NCLB, and his vow to make school districts compete for scarce dollars compounds the problem.

I don't believe non-teachers should be in charge of the Department of Education anyway, and one only has to look at Duncan to see why.

In an interview with Education Week yesterday, Duncan for the first time foreshadowed what the department's next Race to the Top competition will look like.

"I think we'll use it for the districts," he said. "You can do different things. You can do early childhod as a piece of that, or STEM as a piece of that. ... I don't want to commit, but the bulk of the money will go through districts...what we'll be asking of districts is still very much up for consideration."

Duncan, in a 30-minute, wide-ranging interview, also addressed what he sees as the strength of his department's waiver plan, the weaknesses of congressional attempts to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and his desire to stay on as secretary through a second term if President Barack Obama is re-elected.

It's a good reason for Obama not to be re-elected.