ARNE DUNCAN’S CORPORATE BACKERS: ARNE DUNCAN DID A TERRIBLE JOB

Adrian G. Uribarri of the Chitown Daily News reported yesterday:

 Chicago’s public schools have made little progress in raising student achievement during the last several years, according to a new nonprofit report.

The study, from the Civic Committee of The Commercial Club of Chicago, finds that substantial gains on the Illinois State Achievement Test are mainly the result of changes in the test, with only modest improvement in real student performance at elementary and middle schools.

On the Prairie State Achievement Examination, more than 70 percent of high school juniors fail to meet state standards, and fewer achieve scores that indicate college readiness on the national ACT exam in math, reading and science.

That Civic Committee also calls CPS "abysmal," noting that less than 10 percent of all high school students are college ready. That CPS has not improved over the last decade while current Education Sec. Arne Duncan was in charge is territory I covered in my Duncan piece last month.

What’s fascinating here though, is that the Civic Committee trashes the very public school system it’s been funding. The committee is an arm of the Commercial Club of Chicago. The corporate largess of the Commercial Club funded "Renaissance 2010" the plan launched in 2004 by Duncan and Mayor Richard Daley to close under-performing schools and replace them with charters.

The Commercial Club shows its true colors in the report by trumpeting the performance of charter schools as a silver lining in otherwise dismal test score data. And its solutions are almost identical to Duncan’s education reforms ("excellent teachers are the answer" as apparently CPS has been limiting their hiring pool to non-excellent teachers).

But parts of the report come down especially hard at Duncan. For example, the Education Secretary is mocked for penning a letter to the Chicago Tribune that crowed about better 8th grade achievement on math tests. It turns out this better performance was because the 8th graders started taking a different test. It looks like Duncan got out of Chicago at the right time.-MB

 IS BARACK OBAMA’S WAR ON TERROR DIFFERENT THAN GEORGE W. BUSH’S WAR ON TERROR?

No, persuasively reports the New York Times’ Charlie Savage. The slightly longer answer is that Obama’s policies are different than Bush’s policies circa 2002-04. But it’s the same "war on terror" that has been conducted the past three years, including military commissions and modified domestic eavesdropping.-MB

 A 300-WORD COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO OBAMA’S PRESIDENCY SO FAR

Tim Fernholz of the American Prospect has a good piece analyzing what metrics the Obama administration can use to gauge the success of its policies. One particulalry interesting point was how to measure the stimulus bill’s effectiveness when the economy has gotten even worse than expected:

More problematic is the fact that the economic outlook has worsened since the government made its initial projections and that unemployment is rising. That doesn’t mean the ARRA (American Reinvestment and Recovery Act) isn’t working; rather it’s akin to having a doctor prescribing weak medication before realizing your illness has worsened. But it does leave the administration open to criticism, especially now that current conditions suggest another stimulus effort would be beneficial for the economy — even as the numbers give the administration’s political foes the ammunition to say the current stimulus isn’t working.

One sign of a good president, I think, is admitting that a policy you pushed for was flawed. The stimulus bill was a $787 billion piece of legislation, an expansion of the federal government into state and local affairs not seen since LBJ or FDR. But while the bill was historic it also has had not nearly enough impact. States like California and Illinois have essentially given up the core functions of state government like balancing a budget and funding elemental social service programs.

So the bill needs to be re-visited, but it’s hard to see how reconsidering the stimulus fits into the flow of the Obama presidency.  Obama seems to be confronting one major crisis after another: first passing a stimulus bill through Congress, then the crisis on Wall Street, then Afghanistan, and now health care and energy. With so much to accomplish, the story becomes the process of legislation winding its way through Congress (Will Ben Nelson vote for health care reform? Will there be a public insurance option?) instead of a look at what impact enacted legislation has. Maybe the administration’s strategy is to delay re-visiting policy changes until the bulk of the president’s agenda — health-care reform, a cap-and-trade bill on carbon emissions — is enacted in one form or another.

The last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, was accused of having a small presidency. You can’t say the same about Obama.-MB

 GIMBY UPDATE: FACING ARMAGEDDON, ILLINOIS POLITICIANS AGREE TO MEET ON BASTILLE DAY

Illinois missed its deadline yesterday to pass a balanced budget. The state is somewhere between $7-9 billion in debt, which is a 1/3 of its annual spending, and there is utterly no plan on the table to write a balanced budget. Well, there is one plan — Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposal to raise the income tax 50 percent but that remains a non-starter in the Illinois General Assembly.

Rick Pearson and Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune report that Quinn and lawmakers have agreed to return to Springfield (the Illinois state capitol) on July 14th, the day of French emancipation. In the meantime, state schools, health care providers, etc. etc. have utterly no idea how much state services will be cut. In an economic crisis, the services government provides are in limbo.-MB

 NOT BREAKING: IRAQ WAR BASED ON TWO BIG LIES

The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 because Saddam Huseein allegedly had weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. But in 2004 interviews with the FBI — obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the National Security Archives and reported on by the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler –  a captured Saddam said that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam loathed Osama bin Laden. Saddam told an FBI interviewer that Iraq said it had weapons of mass destruction only as a deterrent against Iran. Indeed, the Iraqi leader saw Iran, not the United States, as the country’s one true enemy and threat. Also, Saddam made clear that he was ideologically opposed to al-Qaeda and its use of religious fundamentalism in politics.

Maybe Saddam, knowing his criminal trial was near, was still concocting dastardly lies to undermine the brave freedom fighters taking on Iraq reconstruction. But Saddam’s words verify the detective work of United Nations weapons inspectors and Middle East experts conducted in the run-up to the Iraq War. How the Whtie House and more than 3/4 of the U.S. Senate grew convinced in late-2002 that America had to declare war on Iraq now is already one of the great examples of disastrous Washington groupthink. It’s no wonder Barack Obama played down the celebrations in Iraq yesterday as U.S. troops left Iraqi cities — our involvement there is — ultimately — an embarrassment.-MB

 WELL, THEY ARE BIG AREA-WISE

Louise Radonsky of the Wall Street Journal had a good piece today on the disparities in stimulus spending between states:

Nevada, where unemployment stood at about 10% when the plan was passed, is getting $541 for each resident from the stimulus money allocated so far, a Wall Street Journal analysis found. Wyoming, where the 3.9% jobless rate was the lowest in the country in February, is getting $1,074 per person.

Florida, North Carolina and Oregon are among the other states with relatively low per-capita payouts, despite battling double-digit unemployment. North Dakota and South Dakota, meanwhile, are also receiving large quantities of stimulus money relative to their small populations — even while unemployment remains about half the national average.

This info is taken from the $198 billion of the $787 billion already spent from the stimulus bill. I don’t think it suggests anything nefarious or even incompetent on the part of the Obama administration — they tried to pass a bill as quickly as possible and in so doing used pre-existing funding formulas. What it does show is that federal funding formulas for state social services are structurally biased toward the most sparsely populated states like Wyoming, Alaska and the Dakotas. Ironically, these are also the states whose political leaders often profess staunch opposition to federal spending.-MB

 HOW TO PLAN WHEN THERE’S NO BACKUP PLAN

The reason why the government had to act to save General Motors and Chrysler — and why government interventions in extreme conditions make sense — is all wrapped up in the people who would suffer if government did nothing.  Jonathan Mahler tells the story in the New York Times Magazine of one Detroit family, the Powells, whose roots are deep in America’s postwar industrial revolution and who stand to lose it all if GM goes down.  In fact, they may lose almost everything even if GM is saved, since the company is getting ready to close six more assembly plants in Michigan alone.  But what Mahler does is capture the fact that the Powell family is rich — in deep family ties, in self-help and mutual aid, in a strong religious community, in the ability to make the best of a bad situation and not lose hope.  Mahler writes:

Talking to [Marvin] Powell, I was constantly torn between marveling at his faith, his stubborn belief that everything was going to work out, and the urge to tell him to look around, to read the paper on any given day, to see the train that’s heading straight for him and so many others and try to make a viable plan for his future before it’s too late.  But what would that plan be? . . . Maybe it wasn’t the job you dreamed of when you were 20, but it was what you did and what your father did . . . and it had never failed you before.  What would you do?  How would you prepare for the loss of all that? 

Determined free-marketeers should think about walking a mile (at 5:30 am as the morning shift begins) in Powell’s shoes.

These are people the government would have turned its back on if it had not bailed out GM.  And these people aren’t on their knees — they’re neither defeated nor begging (though many of them are praying a fair amount).  Government aid to GM is a sign to people like the Powells that the work they’ve done for decades to build an American icon — and the U.S. economy — counts for something.  And that kind of support for folks trying to make ends meet is a key strand in our social fabric — which will be stronger now even if GM ultimately fails.

Ned Hodgman

 CITY OF BIG, ENERGY-EFFICIENT SHOULDERS

One of America’s iconic skyscrapers, the Sears Tower in Chicago, may soon be symbolic of much more than a once-mighty retail chain.  Plans are being made to retrofit the 110-story building to meet extremely rigorous environmental standards, Susan Saulny reports in the New York Times.  Wind turbines on the roof, improved glass window performance, and improvements to "lighting, heating, cooling and elevator systems" will be undertaken at a cost of $350 million.  Lower energy bills will help pay for the costs, but clearly planners are doing this for more than just financial reasons — the financing includes grants and government funds and the building’s first floor will include a teaching center focused on the building’s green characteristics.  Looks like Chicago, home of the first skyscrapers, may be home to the next generation as well. -NH

 METRO ACCIDENT PUTS SPOTLIGHT ON AGING SYSTEM’S RELIABILITY

Just a few months ago, Understanding Government released an in-depth report, called America’s Best Ride? on the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, or WMATA, the agency that runs the Metrorail trains involved in yesterday’s tragic commuter train accident in suburban Maryland. 

In preparing that report, Ellen Ramachandran and I had the opportunity to talk to dozens of WMATA employees, from engineers and economists up to General Manager John Catoe.  The agency that emerged from our reporting was one that, in our view, was holding its own in the daily struggle to move more and more people more efficiently and safely.  Yesterday’s disastrous collision, however, sheds light on one problem our report mentioned — that of aging equipment, and in particular, the thirty-year old signalling system that may be at the root of yesterday’s collision.  

Our report highlighted the efforts of WMATA’s leadership to improve communication with customers, changing an aloof corporate culture to a service-oriented one.  That transition will be tested in the weeks to come, if the white-knuckled riders I saw on Metro this morning are any indication.  WMATA’s first public communication is a good start.  But the system’s antiquated signalling system — and overall safety regimen — needs a thorough and open review.  GM Catoe, who recently won a national transit award for his work at WMATA, will have to take his game to the next level if he is reassure a skeptical public.

Ned Hodgman

 IRAN EVENTS MAKE PUBLIC DIPLOMACY MORE ESSENTIAL THAN EVER

When the Soviet Union broke up, we said we had won the Cold War; when Russia moved in an authoritarian direction the question was "Who Lost Russia?" as if Russia were ours to lose.  Too often in America we assume that the world revolves around us, around our reactions to world events, around what our president says or does.  Helene Cooper of the New York Times takes a critical look at this phenomenon with analysis of President Obama’s rhetoric and the latest events in Iran.  Some believe the Iranian turmoil has shown America’s "outsized role at the epicenter of an unfolding story," while others insist the events are "not about America at all." 

Of course the U.S. president’s reaction when a government brutalizes its citizens will be listened to more than the words of any other leader.  But if the recent elections in Lebanon and the Teheran protests have anything to do with America, it is with the atmosphere created by President Obama’s admissions of wrongdoing in the past, and his willingness to reach out to his enemies — something Obama was doing, Cooper points out, "even before he was elected."

Even more important are the totality of signals America sends about its intentions in the world.  The president is only one part of that picture.  U.S. public diplomacy and the way we bring America to the world — through radio and television broadcasting and the Internet, through U.S. cultural outreach, through government-sponsored libraries and cultural centers overseas — create a climate for political change in countries whose publics are bold enough to demand it.  Foreign publics are watching and listening long before the bravest among them take to the streets. 

Ned Hodgman