President Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is doing what a good educator does. He is using his knowledge to help students learn.

Mr. Duncan got valuable hands-on experience -- and insight -- as CEO of public schools in Chicago, where he made dramatic changes that produced dramatic improvements.

Now he is promoting the strategies he used there to elevate education nationwide. Those strategies aren't without detractors, particularly among teacher unions. He believes in school choice, merit pay for teachers and closing failing schools.

But most of the country is weary of waiting for public schools to improve. Wise legislators and school boards will pay close attention to what happened in Chicago and to Duncan. It they use his recipe, they might reap financial rewards as well as educational ones. The stimulus plan passed by Congress and signed by the president includes $5 billion for school reform grants.

Nancy McGinley, superintendent of Charleston County Schools, knows and admires Mr. Duncan. Like him, she has closed poorly performing schools. Also like him, she is trying to build public-private partnerships and promoting school choice.

Other states have made worthy Duncan-approved changes that could put them in line for some of that stimulus money. Wisconsin lawmakers are poised to change a law that would clear the way for merit pay for teachers. Eight states recently eased restrictions on charter schools.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration disappointed advocates of a voucher scholarship program for low-income students in Washington's public schools by going along with the Democratic Congress' decision to stop funding it. But at least Mr. Duncan intervened to extend those benefits for the 1,700 students already in the program. And he has shown promising resolve to defy the president's political allies by pushing innovative strategies generally unpopular with Democrats.

That stirs hope that Mr. Duncan -- and the president -- will rightly make the practical enhancement of learning, not political maneuvering, the primary focus of the administration's educational policy. South Carolina legislators and school boards can learn from that example.

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