His plan for Chicago was to consolidate schools and send kids to schools outside their neighborhoods. This has of course led to massive amounts of fighting between street gangs. Rather than admit he was wrong -- as he is wrong about so much else related to education -- Obama and Daley's corporation man Duncan will tough it out.
All it will cost is dead children.
The Associated Press: Duncan: Chicago education plan not causing deathsDuncan, who as the former head of Chicago Public Schools helped implemented the district's improvement plan, told reporters that is easy to point fingers, but the country needs to focus it's attention instead on the root of the problem.
Since 2005, dozens of Chicago's public schools have been closed and thousands of students reassigned to campuses outside their neighborhoods — and often across gang lines — as part of Renaissance 2010. While the plan has resulted in replacing failing and low-enrollment schools with charter schools and smaller campuses, it has also led to a spike in violence that has increasingly turned deadly, many activists, parents and students say.
Before the 2006 school year, an average of 10-15 public school students were fatally shot each year. That soared to 24 deadly shootings in the 2006-07 school year, 23 deaths and 211 shootings in the 2007-08 school year and 34 deaths and 290 shootings last school year.
Few deaths have occurred on school grounds, but activists say it's no coincidence that violence spiked after the school closures.