April 30, 2009 2:46PM # Arne Comes Through…in a Bad Way By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE ![]()Yesterday, I had an [op-ed go up on Town​hall​.com ](http://townhall.com/columnists/NealMcCluskey/2009/04/29/in_education,_100_days_of_rhetoric_and_not_a_minute_of_real_reform)summarizing what I think of President Obama’s first 100 days when it comes to education. Long story short: Lots of nice-sounding rhetoric, but the opposite of real reform. Today, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan — who has embodied the administration’s all-talk, awful-action approach to education — did me a real solid by penning an [op-ed for CNN​.com](http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/30/duncan.education/index.html) beautifully illustrating exactly what I wrote. Whether it’s his effusive praise of his boss for shoveling tons of federal dough into already obese schools, or his empty, jargon-soaked rhetoric about change — “These discretionary funds are a carrot for educators who will break the mold, scale up successful programs and transform whole school systems” — Duncan really drives home my point. And so, thanks for coming through for me, Arne! Now, about those [DC voucher kids](https://www.cato.org/2009/04/14/are-people-finally-seeing-the-gloom/)… ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).