That’s Right Nate

Wow! Two stories in two days about public transportation must be some sort of record. Chicago continues to break the mold when it comes to education reform under the expert tutelage of Mayor Daley. Arne Duncan became the head of the Chicago Public Schools 8 years ago with a resume that most featured playing professional basketball in Australia. Now our mayor has outdone himself by replacing the basketball playing Duncan with CTA chief Ron Huberman.

What makes Huberman such an exceptional pick is that while he has been in charge of the buses that take many students to school as head of Chicago’s buses and elevated trains, Huberman has absolutely no experience with education. The Mayor then chose a former school principal to replace Huberman as head of the CTA. I love this out of the box type thinking and I hope that the Mayor will apply it to the Police and Fire Departments as well. Too often education has been left to educators in the past. That is no way to reform anything. Educators are poisoned by their experience in the classroom which makes them incapable of pushing through the kind of reform our students need to learn. On the other hand, this experience would in now way hinder their ability to drive a bus or run a public transportation authority. There is very little in my mind about education that can’t be learned by a viewing of To Sir With Love followed by Mr. Holland’s Opus.

Huberman immediately began rolling up his shirt sleeves by announcing his first two priorities were to make basketball games safer and to close over 20 schools. This is the kind of progress I believe we can all get behind for our children and their future. Who knows, in 5 or 6 years when you step on a bus in Chicago you just might see them.