New Education Secretary ignored power of books

As a 26-year veteran of Chicago's public school system and an admirer of the President-Elect, I still have to wonder at President-Elect Obama's selection of Arne Duncan to be the nation's Education Secretary. On paper Duncan has some good stats: Harvard graduate, seven years of relatively peaceful stewardship of a historically troubled school system, and a recent national award for his work. Obama can be pardoned for seeking someone familiar, bowing to the old Spanish adage "Better known though bad than unknown though good." (Duncan is one of his basketball buddies and Hyde Park neighbors, and his wife was active in Obama's campaign). Not to demean Obama's judgement, given his choices, I do wish he had spoken to a few schoolteachers before making his selection. Here's why:
- Duncan has very little teaching or local administrative experience in a public school system. His position was achieved partly because of his parents, both noted educators, and mostly because of his connections to the Daley machine.
- Duncan favors charter schools, which have been widely criticized and have yet to show they are an educational panacea, with many of them having failed or shut down.
- Duncan has neglected to ensure that the schools have enough books for students to benefit from wide exposure to literature, and to have the opportunity of hitting upon that book which could make them lifelong learners--and lifelong achievers.
Most schools have very inadequate libraries and miserly book budgets. Teachers are unable to order books from the latest publisher catalogs because they lack the funds. They are also unable to take advantage of student reading interests, and to turn them into reading and writing tools. Imagine, for example, if we teachers had been able to order, in advance, sets of one of the latest Harry Potter book, which J.K. Rowling, herself a teacher, creatively uses to teach footnotes and bibliography. How much easier would it be for us to teach students the rudiments of the research paper?
Perhaps this blog is unfairly critical of Duncan's budget policies, given the stagnant economy. But at no time during his seven-year tenure has Duncan ever spoken out in favor of books as the one true tool to improving reading. We have not seen him at any book-related functions, including Printers Row and One Book, One Chicago. The elite schools like North Side College Prep do not need such promotion, certainly, but the many scchools with deplorable reading scores do need it, in spades.
Let's hope that Obama, himself a bookman of sorts with a wide reading regimen and two books to his credit, will push Duncan to get books into the schools, or at least promote them as a major solution to the nation's educational ills.

Wondering as I Wander Along Printers Row

One of the cultural links we share with Havana, Cuba, is a street book fair. Culture-starved Cubans treasure this precious source of mental nourishment, and the Castro government is wise enough to let up somewhat on its usual censorship policies, and allow a long-suffering people to enjoy one rare luxury as they browse over tables of dog-eared, sunned and sometimes brittle paperbound volumes on all subjects under their Antillean sky. In Chicago there is a two-day summer festival called the Printers Row Book Fair which fills the same need, though Chicagoans hunger far less for culture. Both cities share the same love of books and reading, yet cannot share the same books for political reasons. There it is the Castro regime's suppression of external mail, which prevents Cubans from sending books overseas. Here it is the 45-year embargo on all goods sent to Cuba, including books.
On both sides more enlightened heads need to prevail. Just visualize a Printers Row browser in front of a Havana book barrow, or a studious Havana University student under the Powell's tent: how can one not be filled then with a sense of the literary brotherhood of humankind? What will it take to bring down the "Berlin Wall" of censors and embargoers so booklovers everywhere can share their passion across the seas?
It is my conviction that propagation of books and reading among all cultures will bring the world closer together, with multiple ultimate benefits to the race. Is there anyone who reads regularly who does not occasionally feel a curiosity to know what a fellow human being is reading?