Given the recent exposure of Chicago’s sordid political culture, one would think that Obama, already with ample shady connections to fret over, would be weary of drawing yet one more Chicago pol to Washington. But one would be wrong:

President-elect Barack Obama will nominate Chicago schools executive Arne Duncan as his education secretary at an event in the city today, transition aides said, and is expected to tap Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) later this week to serve as secretary of the interior, all but finalizing his selections for major Cabinet posts.

…Duncan, 44, has been chief executive of the Chicago public schools since 2001, steering the nation’s third-largest school district, which has more than 400,000 students. Duncan was raised in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, not far from Obama’s home, and is a longtime friend and basketball partner of the president-elect. He graduated from Harvard University, where he was co-captain of the basketball team, and he played professional basketball in Australia from 1987 to 1991. He returned to Chicago to direct the Ariel Education Initiative, which creates educational opportunities for youths on the South Side.

…Although Obama has not detailed how he will try to fix the nation’s struggling schools, he has promised to recruit an “army of new teachers,” create better tests and give public schools more funding. The president-elect has not taken sides in a debate between reform advocates and powerful teachers unions, and choosing Duncan seems to be a consensus move likely to appeal to both.

If we only had more teachers/money/tests!  In other words, Obama’s solution is more of the same.  More of that “change” we can believe it.  But what a sad state of affairs that Obama can’t even decide whether he’s on the side of children and parents or special interest teachers unions.  My, what a tough decision.

As for Duncan, I think David Boaz said it best:

In seven years running the Chicago public schools, this longtime friend of Obama was apparently not able to produce a single public school that Obama considered good enough for his own children.

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