Blago was always sleazy on education

Wow! "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak and Gov. Blagojevich going to jail and Ann Coulter having her jaw wired shut, all in the same year. Life is sweet.

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They've busted Blagojevich for doing things the way they've always been done around here. And I'm fine with that. But Blago didn't just think up patronage and political pay-back all by himself. He was just stupid enough to talk about it openly, even though he knew Fitzgerald was recording all his conversations. And those conversations--especially the profanities directed at those who wouldn't play ball (Obama)--were particularly revealing about how the system works.

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Back in 2006, I blogged about Blago's funneling of state education funds to politically-favored programs, like the dollar-bloated after-school program/political patronage bucket run by Maggie Daley. Some Blago grants even went to political cronies who hadn't even applied for them. Somehow though, hustler Blago was never able to find adequate dollars to fund our debt ridden public schools. I also wrote about the Gov's "bold, new plan" to "reform" Illinois schools, which was little more than Bush's now discredited Ownership Society privatization nonsense.

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Where will this all lead? To the 5th floor of Chicago's City Hall? Probably not, even though Daley hatchet man Johh Harris was busted along with Blago. Daley still seems untouchable. But I suspect that with the appointment for Secretary of Education imminent, Obama will now steer clear of Arne Duncan and anything Chicago, play it safe and go with Denver Supt. Michael Bennet.