When
Barack Obama chose as his Education secretary the man who had led the school
system in his hometown of Chicago, he boasted
about Arne Duncan's record in the job.
"In
just seven years, he's boosted elementary test scores here in Chicago from 38
percent of students meeting the standards to 67 percent," Obama said. "The dropout rate
has gone down every year he's been in charge. And on the ACT, the gains of
Chicago students have been twice as big as those for students in the rest of
the state."
But
the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a Duncan ally, recently
issued a report
that exposed Obama's brag as nothing more than an uneducated guess about the
quality of Chicago schools. The report, titled "Still Left Behind,"
includes harsh critiques such as "the performance of Chicago's high
schools is abysmal" and most eight-graders "have little chance to
succeed in high school or to be ready for college."
A
Sunday USA
Today story fact-checked Obama's
claims about Duncan and found them lacking. Here's a recap of what Obama said
about Chicago's schools compared with reality:
- Boast
No. 1: A whopping 29 percent more students in elementary school are meeting
testing standards. Reality: Pass rates increased only 8 percent.
- Boast
No. 2: Dropout rates declined every year while Duncan was in charge. Reality:
The rate has declined, but "most of Chicago's students drop out or
fail."
- Boast
No. 3: Gains in ACT test scores to enter college were twice as large in
Chicago as elsewhere in the state. Reality: The scores were so bad that
they had nowhere to go but up. Chicago's composite score of 17.4 was still
lower than the statewide average of 20.5.
Duncan
clearly is not the educational hero that Obama advertised. Instead, Obama,
Duncan and Chicago Mayor Richard Daly are guilty of "using
statistics that do not reflect the changes in testing and scoring and
treating them as a consistent series of data."
They
definitely don't need an education in "How To Lie With
Statistics."