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The Washington Times caught up with Education Secretary Arne Duncan last week and asked Mr. Duncan why the Department of Education felt the need to rush through a rule to be imposed upon for-profit schools, when the creation of the rule itself is still being investigated by his Department’s Office of the Inspector General.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) called on Mr. Duncan to answer why the rule must be imposed at the moment, when questions about the suitability of a HELP Committee hearing witness for Democratic Senator Tom Harkin are still unanswered.
“We’re watching it very, very carefully . We’ve had 90‘000 comments and really thoughtful comments and we think we’re going to come out with something (inaudible),” He said.
Senator Tom Coburn was critical of the making of DOE’s “gainful employment rule,” saying in a HELP Committee hearing last year that someone should be going to “jail” over these matters:
“…very significant and inappropriate behavior at the Department of Education in tipping hedge funds on short-selling public — private education.”Mr. Coburn finally remarked, “the issue in terms of the lack of proper utilization of facts in the Department of Education and managing investors in one segment to make significant dollars over something the government is thinking about doing is highly unethical and if proven to be the case, some people ought to be going to jail in the Department of Education. And this is not a light statement, I recognize that but it’s a serious statement. And I promise you, if we don’t get on at this committee, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will in fact do that.”
Mr. Duncan disagrees with Mr. Coburn’s assessment telling the Wahington Times in our video interview, that he “doesn’t think anyone is going to jail.”
