What Did Arne Duncan Know and When Did He Know It?

Conn Carroll / April 14, 2009

As audacious as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s decision to take scholarship money away from low-income families is, the bigger story may be what exactly did Duncan know about the Department of Education’s Opportunity Scholarship study and when did he know it?

The Wall Street Journal reported last week:

Voucher recipients were tested last spring. The scores were analyzed in the late summer and early fall, and in November preliminary results were presented to a team of advisers who work with the Education Department to produce the annual evaluation. Since Education officials are intimately involved in this process, they had to know what was in this evaluation even as Democrats passed (and Mr. Obama signed) language that ends the program after next year.
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Mr. Duncan’s office spurned our repeated calls and emails asking what and when he and his aides knew about these results. We do know the Administration prohibited anyone involved with the evaluation from discussing it publicly. You’d think we were talking about nuclear secrets, not about a taxpayer-funded pilot program. (more…)