"I attended my first Chicago Board of Education meeting in decades Tuesday and my first Chicago Public Schools kindergarten graduation the next morning. The inadequacies of the former were underscored by the inspiration of the latter.

"The board reaffirmed the existing teachers contract, guaranteeing a generous 4 percent raise negotiated by the weak-kneed duo of Mayor Richard M. Daley and Arne Duncan, then the superintendent of Chicago Public Schools and now the United States secretary of education. The board thus eliminated the chance of a strike in the fall as it also affirmed the power of Mr. Duncan's successor, Ron Huberman, a strong and hard-pressed manager, to perhaps lay off teachers and raise the number of students in classrooms."

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