There’s a lead article in today’s Times describing Arne “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” Duncan’s plan to move towards closing schools as a new type of federal reform.

I have a lot to say about the feasibility of such a program — it would only work with massive financial incentives, incentives which would then flow into the hands of district administrators whose financial track record is hardly proven — but what was striking about this article is that neither the reporter nor Duncan mentioned where these schools are and which children would be affected.

There’s no mention of race or class in describing poorly performing high schools (for that matter, there’s minimal mention of how you’d define these schools: I’m sorry suburban family, your high school didn’t send enough kids to Yale this year) so it elides the fact that any program would necessarily be about Philadelphia, New York, LA: the big school districts that serve primarily poor children of color.