In Michelle Davis’ Education Week article ($) about John Boehner’s ascension to majority leader UVA’s Larry Sabato says that education was a “focus” of Boehner’s.
Really? He didn’t care much about it before he became Ed and Workforce Chairman. Isn’t a more plausible explanation that Boehner used education to rebuild his congressional career after he was ousted from the leadership in 1998? He’s never been particularly interested in it though he did a good job carrying the Bush Administration’s priorities in Congress and education helped him build relationships in Congress, both things that paid of in the leadership race. That said, two thoughts (a) He’s not going to let himself get embarrassed by the committee he used to chair, and that’s bad news for No Child Left Behind foes and (b) He understands the political upsides of education for the party that really engages on the issue and that’s bad news for Democrats.
And, speaking of edupunditry, took a look at Russo’s numbers on edusourcing which are all the buzz this week among the handful of people who care and I don’t think they’re right. Looks like a lot fewer mentions than he says, about 10 percent as many. That’s because if you don’t put the search name in “quotes” you get a skewed result cause the word “Andrew” appears a lot. Try it yourself, quotes and then no quotes.
Geez! Either it’s sloppy or it’s almost like he doesn’t want reporters to call me! Nah, couldn’t be that cynical!
Update: Russo has the new numbers now and sets the record straight.