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What Arne Can Learn from Peter

So this hasn't exactly been the best week ever for Arne Duncan. Yesterday, Ezra Klein, David Boaz and Matthew Ygleias all excerpted the same...

Amanda M. Fairbanks
By Amanda M. FairbanksJan 02, 2010
Amanda M. Fairbanks
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So this hasn't exactly been the best week ever for Arne Duncan.Yesterday, Ezra Klein, David Boaz and Matthew Ygleias all excerpted the same graf from Tuesday's Washington Post:Miami, Houston and New York had higher scores than Chicago on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Boston, San Diego and Atlanta had bigger gains. Even fourth-graders in the much-maligned D.C. schools improved nearly twice as much since 2003.Surely Duncan must be envious of all positive attention being directed at the newly engaged Peter Orszag, the White House budget director who, following a proposal to his sweetheart over lunch on Monday and passage of health care reform the week prior, can seemingly do no wrong.Maybe what the Department of Education needs is an injection of romance and if not romance (since Duncan is, after all, married with two children) some glamour and star-power.Thankfully, education has Jennifer Garner.So far, Garner has taken meetings with more than half a dozen Senators and Congressmen. She told Politico that while "people seem receptive…it's hard to get from a smile and nod and handshake to seeing something actually go through."With the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) looming on the horizon, of which the No Child Left Behind Act is the current incarnation (can we at least get a new name for it?), Garner reassures us by saying that's she's more than happy "to put on a proper dress and a set of pearls," should the situation warrant it.Is Garner up to the gargantuan task? And for that matter, do celebrity activists help or hinder the causes they go after?Photo via
educationarne duncanpeter orszag

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