Arne Duncan is the new education guy. In my reading up on him, he sounded neither super great nor overtly evil. He seemed a little in the middle. Every damn news article was sure to mention the basketball thing (he played professional basketball in Australia for a while after college, and these days plays pick-up games with Obama), and the CEO of Chicago Public Schools thing (always adding that his is the third-largest district in the U.S.).

Duncan is big on teacher accountability and on shutting down schools that aren’t getting the job done. He supports the facets of NCLB that aim to improve teacher and school accountability and the gathering of data that show how well the students are learning/being taught. I’m with him—for the most part—on that stuff. I’m also in agreement with Mr. Duncan that the NCLB act is too rigid and that one single set of rules doesn’t work well for every school in the country. Duncan wants to improve schools, but he sees that the NCLB—as it’s written now—isn’t conducive to that end.

It makes me happy that the new Secretary of Education was pissed about the NCLB act way back in 2003. If that weren’t enough to make me a believer, two blog posts I read about him tipped the scales for me. I’m only going to link to one, because I’m not (wo)man enough to deal with finding a burning cross on my front lawn should I anger this particular blogger. You can look for the post yourself; just Google these two magic phrasings: “Education Secretary Arne Duncan” and “Exposing Liberal Lies.” It’ll come right up. Good luck. I saw no light at the end of the tunnel while excavating the blog so I turned back.

The blogger in question, who also wrote an entire post about the erroneousness of global warming, dislikes Duncan because he spoke out in support of creating a gay, lesbian, bi and transgender-friendly high school. Duncan felt that these students needed some extra support, especially in light of the fact that teens dealing with sexuality questions and issues have disproportionately large numbers of drop-outs, homeless and runaways.

Knowing that Arne Duncan put his neck out there to support kids who are unpopular at school, at home, and with most of the religious right in this country made me want to sit in his corner. Only someone who was truly interested in the welfare and education of students in his district would support something that would make him popular only with the kids in question. It was ballsy and kind, which I will always support.

And since it’s not enough to support a gutsy nice guy just because he wants to alter the NCLB act and is not well-loved by people who don’t believe in hard science, I also needed this to tip the scales completely in his favor: Steven D. Levitt from Freakonomics had wonderful things to say about his firsthand experience with Arne Duncan:

Freakonomics readers will remember Arne as the hero of our chapter on teacher cheating. He was head of the Chicago Public Schools when Brian Jacob and I were investigating how teachers and administrators were doctoring standardized test sheets.
With seemingly nothing to gain and much to lose, Arne embraced our results, even allowing us to do audit testing to confirm our hypotheses. Eventually, a handful of teachers were fired.

Since then, I’ve interacted with Arne a few times, and in a variety of settings. I always walk away dazzled. He is smart as hell and his commitment to the kids is remarkable. If you wanted to start from scratch and build a public servant, Arne would be the end product.

Increasing Marketable Skills

Ah, the economy. I’ve always assumed that most humans of legal money-earning age have three thought-topics on more or less constant rotation through their minds: food, sex, and money. Those are all directly related to survival, so it makes sense that we’d be hyper-focused on them. And yet, when the media and the government types yell “The economy is tanking!” in a crowded theatre (or country, as it were), everyone comes unglued. All wage-earning adults are suddenly on a mission to make themselves Super-Duper Employable. Were they not toiling to that end before?

There’s nothing wrong with a strong work ethic and a good solid employability mindset. I’m all for being a productive citizen. It’s just odd to watch everyone suddenly scramble around in panicked circles and then run off in an Extra Hireable direction. What was everyone doing before, lolling around eating bonbons and archiving earwax chunks?

Sometimes it’s just bad luck: anyone who was kicking ass in the real estate business a few years ago is having a tough time these days. A lot of adults who had been, until recently, firmly ensconced in their careers are finding themselves less than necessary. Instead of wallowing in self-pity and praying for a miracle, a lot of adults are using the forced downtime to their advantage and are heading back to school.

According to this article in the CS Monitor, freaking out about the economy is causing prospective college students (and their bill-footing parents) to reconsider where (and if) they should do their matriculating. Out of 2,500 high school seniors surveyed by MeritAid.com, almost 60 percent were planning on less prestigious higher education venues for purely frugal reasons. 14 percent switched from plans to attend a four-year college and are heading to two-year colleges instead. 16 percent of the kids surveyed are halting all higher education plans for the time being.

College students currently attending private schools are considering the very tempting transfer to in-state public schools. And schools closer to home are a much more viable option for most families.

Admissions staffs see nervousness about not just tuition but also tangential costs. At a recent college fair in Greenwich, Conn., a mother and daughter approached the table for Claremont McKenna College. When the mom realized it was in California, “she said, ‘We’re having enough trouble financing the education these days, I don’t think we really want to worry about all the plane tickets,’ ” says associate dean of admission Adam Sapp. “I definitely didn’t hear that last year.”

The NY Times has an even cheerier article about families struggling to pay for college and the added challenge of loans being harder to come by these days.