No Christmas in July for Duncan
Reality hasn't yet caught up with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who implored Congress this week to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) before the beginning of the next school year. Aside from the sheer impracticality of enacting a comprehensive education reform law in two months, how wise is rushing such an influential law? Didn't we try the same with NCLB in 2001 (which still took a whole year to enact), leading to many of the law's unexamined and unintended consequences?
And then there is the politics of the matter. Duncan made his case while in Minnesota at the invitation of Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), but his remarks were made in the relative backyard of House Education Committee Chairman John Kline (R-MN). Kline, at least, has passed an ESEA reauthorization bill—albeit one of his
