Of Secret Lists and Special Treatment
by Frederick M. Hess • Mar 24, 2010 at 9:24 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
Cross-posted from Education Week
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I am among those (including, apparently, Rep. David Obey) warning that failure to sensibly insulate Race to the Top (RTT) from political officials and pressure poses risks to the credibility and sustainability of the centerpiece of the Obama administration's ed reform agenda.Now, in a development ripe with irony, Chicago Breaking News has raised a ruckus in Chicago with its report that then-Superintendent Arne Duncan's staff kept a list of politicians' school requests. The report has raised concerns about political favoritism and lack of transparency.
Chicago Breaking News reports:
"While many Chicago parents took formal routes to land their children in the best schools, the well-connected also sought help through a shadowy appeals system created in recent years under former schools chief Arne Duncan.
Whispers have long swirled that some children get spots in the city's premier schools based on whom their parents know. But a list maintained over several years in Duncan's office and obtained