In the Executive Office and in Congress, some people are more equal than others.
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.
This from a guy who ended the school choice program in DC.
The initials “AD” are listed 10 times as the sole person requesting help for a student, and as a co-requester about 40 times. Pickens said “AD” stood for Arne Duncan, though Duncan’s involvement is unclear. Duncan’s mother appears as a sponsor, as does “KD,” whom Pickens identified as Karen Duncan, Arne’s wife.
Competition to get into the city’s premier selective enrollment schools is fierce. Every year thousands of students apply for openings at the schools, considered the crown jewels of the city’s public school system. But parents have long complained the system is rigged, murky and unfair. They tell stories about friends and neighbors whose children were admitted through back channels.
I’m sure it’s all stories, lies and innuendo. Yep. And my favorite insight is from Warren Meyer:
This is going to be even more fun when this game is applied to jumping the hospital waiting list.
HT: Coyote Blog.
This the perfect storm of hope and change, right?
As an aside, remember that right up almost until the day Obama was elected, Code Pink, MoveOn, and the like (along w/ many leftist groups) held virulent protests regularly demanding that Gitmo close and we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan (fwiw, I agree with them). But it seems like since election day 2008, we haven’t heard a peep more about it. In fact, Obama even sent more troops in. What gives?