Duncan should "feel badly" about all his errors

  Arne Duncan is trashing Texas's educational system, apparently oblivious that the swamp from which he originated, the Chicago Public Schools, has abysmal scores.
  In addition to his inaccurate numbers, Duncan, the Education Secretary of the United States, committed the egregious error of saying he "feel[s] very, very badly" for the children of Texas.
  Uh hum.
  This must mean that 1) his fingers have a mind of their own  2)  his brain is not connected to his fingers and thus he has little control what they do  or   3) he's just not very experienced when it comes to using his hands.
  His quote from Jake Tapper's blog:

“Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college," Duncan tells Bloomberg TV’s Al Hunt of Texas in an interview set to air tomorrow. "I feel very, very badly for the children there."   

Texas ranks 43rd among states for high school graduation rate, according to the Legislative Budget Board’s 2010 Texas Fact Book.  Slightly more than 61 percent of students graduate each year.   

“You have seen massive increases in class size. You’ve seen cutbacks in funding. It doesn’t serve the children well. It doesn’t serve the state well. It doesn’t serve the state’s economy well. And ultimately it hurts the country,” he says.  

  Even Time Magazine was confused by the figures Duncan cites.
  Hot Air:

So it’s clear that not only does Duncan not know that Texas performs at the national average (whether or not one finds the national average acceptable), Duncan is apparently unaware that the school system he led is significantly worse than the national average.  Let’s not forget that while Perry, as governor, has responsibility for the performance of the state government that has some responsibilities for school systems, Duncan was running the actual school system in Chicago. Despite this, and despite picking this fight himself, Duncan is entirely ignorant of the results of his own work and its comparison to Texas. 

  It costs slightly less to educate a student in Texas than Chicago, unbeknownst to the Education Secretary.
  In addition, even Politifact identifies as FALSE the allegation that Perry's funding cuts have caused class sizes to swell:

For example, kindergarten classes averaged 19.3 students in 2005-06, bumped up to 19.5 students in 2006-07, then dipped to 18.9 students in 2007-08 before averaging 19 students in 2008-09 and 19.3 students in 2009-10.
Among the grades affected by the 22-1 class-size mandate, fourth-grade classes were the biggest in 2009-10, at 19.9 students. Over the previous four years, fourth-grade classes ranged in size from 19.3 students in 2005-06 to 20.2 students in 2006-07.
Fifth- and sixth-grade classes averaged 21 to 22 students over the five years, while mixed-grade classes averaged up to 25.7 students, in 2005-06.
In 2009-10, high school class sizes ranged from an average of 17.8 students in English/language arts to 20.4 students in social studies. Over the four previous years, the size of the classes averaged 19.6 students to 22.5 students.
So, there was no massive ballooning, the figures suggest, with early elementary classes remaining smaller than required by law.

  Class sizes this low are not even seen here in Perrysburg. Imagine. A high school English class that averages between 18 and 20 students, where here in Perrysburg English class sizes swell to 28 and 29.
  This appalling inaccuracy by Duncan, a blatant partisan attack, has not gone unnoticed in Texas at the Dallas Morning News where they may be considering treating him "ugly" if he ever comes down there:

We shouldn't hear lies come out of the mouth of the nation's top education official (photo at right) when he discusses the record of millions of students and dedicated educators.
People work too hard to have their work dismissed with his pathetic statement about feeling "very, very badly for the children there."

  Texas educates more minority non-English speaking students than most states, yet their numbers are still good as far as graduation rates and national test scores go. Hot Air:

– In 2009, Texas ranked 7th in a 26 state comparison of the only states reporting four-year on-time graduation rates. That year Texas’ on-time graduation rate was 80.6%. The Texas on-time graduation rate for 2010 is now 84.3%, an amazing 3.7 percentage point increase in a single year on the dropout indicator that you are now requiring all states to report to the Department.

  And from NRO:

But by this standard, Secretary Duncan should feel “very very badly” — if not horribly — for the children of Chicago, where he served as school chief from 2001 to 2009. According to a 2009 America’s Promise Alliance study, the high-school graduation rate in Chicago Public Schools was 51 percent. When Arne Duncan was in charge, the average student in the Windy City had only a fifty-fifty chance of even graduating, let alone going to college. 

And back to Time:

And with a high school graduation rate of about 73%, Texas may be slightly below the national average, but it's doing a lot better than Chicago, which only graduates about 56% of its students. 

  So why do people use the phrase "I feel badly" when they mean "I feel bad"? Some people simply attribute it to exposure to bad grammar. 
  But why would someone who represents education in the highest office of the United States do it? Obviously it isn't intentional. No one wants to look like an ass.
  The truth is that for an educator, this usage smacks of laziness and pretentiousness, of someone trying to sound authoritative, proper and elegant, without bothering to educate oneself adequately.
  In short, a phony.
  But then, that seems to be a hallmark of Chicago Public Schools too.
  How about that.

  Just remember. It's all about the cash chillens.