NEA endorsement of President Obama: A suicide pact for public education?

In my latest Huffington Post blog, I comment on the decision of the National Education Association (NEA) to endorse President Barack Obama's re-election a year and a half before any ballots are cast:

By casting your lot with Barack Obama, and it pains me to say this, you are endorsing the president who has done more to destroy what is good about public education than any president in history.


When President Bush pushed for the fatally flawed No Child Left Behind to be enacted at the beginning of his first term, it was to be expected. This was a Republican president who bought into the idea that education would function better if it were governed by the principles of big business.

After eight years of the Bush doctrine, it appeared that better times were ahead. President Obama was elected and the Democratic Party had control of the House and Senate. No Child Left Behind could be eliminated and the focus could have been properly shifted toward curing the societal problems that have made it so difficult to educate many inner-city children.

Instead the president ignored pleas to put an actual educator in charge of the Education Department and installed Arne Duncan, the CEO of Chicago Public Schools, (the title providing clear evidence what direction he would take) as Secretary of Education.