Research

Four months ago, we warned you about Obama’s education secretary, Arne Duncan, and his attempt at turning the Education Department into a favor factory. Well, there is now an investigation of Duncan during his time as the head of Chicago’s public school system, reports The New York Times:

When Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, was chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools, his office kept a log of nearly 40 pages listing the local politicians and business people and others who sought help getting children into the city’s most selective public schools.

According to an article Tuesday in The Chicago Tribune, which first obtained and reported on the confidential log, those who sought such help included 25 aldermen, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s office, the State House speaker, the state attorney general, the former White House social secretary and a former United States senator.

What does that Chicago Tribune article say about what Duncan possibly did for the politically powerful in the Windy City?

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.

Trading stimulus grants for support is easy to imagine if Duncan was comfortable playing politics with children’s futures. And placing Duncan at the Department of Education is only one of many ways Obama has brought Chicago to the Potomac.