US Education Secretary Arne Duncan's Accomplishments In Chicago Questioned

MSNBC article: Some critics challenge magnitude of Duncan’s accomplishments in Chicago

To those who follow the "muckraking" done by this blog this should not be news to you.

I have called out Arne Duncan's results in Chicago along with the present establishment powers that manage the educational institutions in the city.   They manage to graduate only 52.2% of all high school seniors.  The fact that 87% of all Chicago Public Schools students are Black or Hispanic means that this unacceptable rate has an undue and deleterious impacts upon minority students.

Lump this as yet another bit of evidence of the misaligned system of political activism by the Black "rank and file" and Black Establishment.  Instead of working to resolve our most pressing challenges by properly managing the key local resources that are already within our domain of control - they have chosen the path of political power aggregation via expansion.

I believe that the failure to graduate more Black students in Chicago has a direct bottom line impact upon the Black male unemployment rate as I have highlighted in a post a few weeks ago.

Arne Duncan vs Rod Paige

During my efforts at monitoring Black talk radio (WAOK AM in Atlanta) and an assortment of Black Progressive-Fundamentalist blogs one sad fact is obvious.   The sustained attacks that were cast upon US Education Secretary Rod Paige and the "No Child Left Behind" has totally evaporated.   With both Paige and "NCLB" being attached to the Bush Administration they were subject to attack per the broader agenda of the Black Establishment.   Now that Duncan has replaced Paige yet "NCLB" remains the more favorable and Democratic Obama Administration has caused all of the "Red Cross"-like agents in the Black Educational Advocacy movement to put down their guns and return to rendering aid on the battle field, removing the masking tape that had covered the cross on their helmets as field medics.   These Black Establishment operatives have switched from their unsatisfiable disposition and scrutiny of the opposition administration back to their insatiable HOPE that given enough of our community's support we can finally achieve the academic equality that is hoped for.

NO EVIDENCE FROM CHICAGO AND ELSEWHERE IS GOING TO BURST THIS BUBBLE!

Graduation Rates In Large Public School Systems

Power Retention Not Academic Ascension 

The African-American body politic has got to have the lowest index between its defined political/ideological loyalties and the resulting benefits to their own PERMANENT INTERESTS of any group in America.  The facts show that there is a greater interest in "power aggregation" (ie: collecting official portraits upon the wall) than there is in the actual attainment of effective results from the institutions that are now under favorable control.  What other conclusion does the strong series of facts lead one to indicate?

The art of the "one off" focus was at play in the previous opposition to "NCLB" and the current opposition to Charter schools.  Those in the establishment fear that the adversarial forces seek to strip them of their POWER by removing Black and/or Progressive school system administrators or by disemboweling the teacher's unions.   It is clear to me that the issue is not these assumed threats which must be challenged from the perspective of the parents of the students who consume these educational services.  Instead there is a need to prevent the incumbent educational establishment from "self-prescribing" the arguments that assist in explaining away the reasons for these shoddy results.  Instead they must be subjected to the will of the community in line with the attainment of actual results.  Not the INTENTION to do so.

An Indictment Of The Entire Eco-System

Ultimately this situation in Chicago (and Baltimore and Washington DC and Philadelphia and Cleveland and Detroit and St Louis)  can't be exclusively attributed to the political struggles between the school establishment and their reform adversaries.  It is the array of adults in the entire eco-system who's priority purpose needs to be the management of the outcomes of the academic process for the members of their own community that should be held accountable.

In as much as the next 30 years of their community's existence is being fomented by the education and preparation imparted upon the young people sitting in the seats at these schools this failure of alignment will prove fatal to the community's permanent interests.   Despite the inclination toward obfuscating outward - the damage will be up close and personal.

I have previously spoken about the need to develop language around the costs of the aggregate choices made by the "Black Community" and certain "Rust Belt" cities that are with us today.  Add the present state of the public school infrastructure to this checklist of damages.   Despite having "favorable people" in power after decades of political struggle the interests of the people are no more advanced now than when the struggle was initiated.  The most substantive change is the loss of inclination to hold the power who sit in the seats of power accountable for the same failed outcomes.   Why upset one's "Permanent Friends", troubling them with consideration of those pesky "Permanent Interests"?

Find a common enemy and struggle against him - UNITY will be maintained.