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Gigot: So they were so looking for the technical infractions that they missed the bigger picture. All right, thanks, James.

Still ahead, Obama's choice for education secretary. Arne Duncan, is being touted as a reformer, but will he take on the teachers unions? Our panel examines his Chicago record when we come back.

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Obama: When it comes to school reform, Arne is the most hands-on of hands-on practitioners. For Arne, school reform isn't just a theory and a book. It's the cause of his life.

Gigot: That was President-elect Barack Obama nominating Chicago school chief Arne Duncan to be the next secretary of education. But does he have what it takes to fight the nation's teachers unions?

Here with a look at Duncan's reform credentials, Wall Street Journal editorial board member Jason Riley and senior editorial page writer Collin Levy.

Jason, he's described Duncan as a compromise choice. What does that mean in policy terms?

Riley: Well, it means that he's not a product owned--wholly owned product of the teachers unions.

Gigot: Partially owned? Not wholly owned?

Riley: Perhaps. He supports reforms that many want, such as merit pay for teachers and charter schools and these sorts of things. So that's why he's described as someone who can please both sides of this debate.

Gigot: But merit pay is more pay for better teachers.

Riley: Yeah, pay for performance.

Gigot: But is he willing to take on the flip side of that, which is teacher tenure, which would allow you to get rid of bad teachers?

Riley: That's the big question. We don't know.

Gigot: Do we know?

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Riley: We don't know. But we know that he's willing to close bad schools. He's done that. He has a history of doing that in Chicago, and that's a step in the right direction.

Gigot: All right, Collin, let's talk about his Chicago record. You've looked at it. Give us some of the pros and cons of what he's done there.

Levy: Yeah, I think the record in Chicago is certainly a mixed bag. I think the main thing that people point to is that graduation rates during his tenure improved. And that is something good in Chicago. But the flip side of it was that high school test scores didn't really go up. And in particular, Chicago's ranking among other major urban school districts also didn't improve during the tenure, so it's about status quo.

Gigot: But the graduation rates improved how much--nominally, or in a significant way?

Levy: Nominally. They're about 55% now. They were about 47%, I think, when he took over. So--

Gigot: That's not bad. That's pretty good improvement.

Levy: Yeah, that is good improvement.

Gigot: And how extensive were his--he's a big supporter of charter schools. How extensively did he spread them in Chicago? Are there a lot more now than there used to be?

Levy: There are a lot more now. And one of the things that he did that was very good was that Chicago has a cap on the number of charter schools that it can actually create. And what he did was he worked within that cap and said, OK, we're allowed to have 15 charter schools technically, so let's let each of those charters operate four or five campuses. So that was a way of expanding charters without actually breaking the rules.

Gigot: I see, so he wouldn't try to bust the cap politically, which is what Joel Klein--

Levy: Exactly.

Gigot: Joel Klein, for example, the New York City public school superintendent, really fought and succeeded breaking that cap, which in this state was 100.

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I guess my question, Dan, is, if Chicago's public schools are so great, why didn't Barack Obama and Michelle Obama send their own children there?

Henninger: Because they're not great enough. And that's why they're not doing it in Washington, D.C., as well.

I think I have to introduce a note of cynicism into this conversation. Yeah, maybe he was a fairly effective commissioner in Chicago. What does that have to do with being secretary of education, which is mainly about money? The head of the Illinois state union, Ken Swanson, teachers union, put out a statement this week saying he was supporting Arne Duncan, and I have it right here. He said--why? He says, because Duncan said that funding is "the civil rights issue of our time." And he quotes Duncan at a big rally in Springfield, the capital of Illinois, saying "Fund our schools, fund our schools!"

Gigot: But money--

Henninger: This is about money! And Barack Obama has promised to spend a lot of money through the Department of Education.

Riley: He's not that much of a reformer in the sense that he still believes that the answer to our education problems is more money. And Dan's right. Most education reform in this country is not done at the federal level, which is only responsible for about 8% of school spending in the country. It's done at the state and the local level. And it's nice to have someone in Washington who will rhetorically back up the reformers doing the grunt work at the state and local level, and maybe Duncan will do that. He'll give some support to people for alternative certification and for school vouchers, perhaps, for charter schools and merit pay and so forth. But the hard work is going to be done at the state and local level.

Gigot: All right, Jason Riley, thanks very much.

We have to take one more break. When we come back, our "Hits and Misses" of the week.

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