NOT! President-Elect (officially) Obama chose his friend Arne Duncan, Chief of the Chicago Public Schools to be the next Education Secretary (Cronyism anyone?). With that, Spanier will remain in State College for the foreseeable future.

Mr. Obama plans to announce his nomination of Mr. Duncan tomorrow in Chicago, according to Democratic sources speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Duncan has been chief executive of the Chicago Public Schools for the past seven years, and has little policy-making experience in either postsecondary education or the federal government.

The nomination, which requires Senate confirmation, is one of the last to be made by Mr. Obama for his cabinet in preparation for his swearing-in as president, on January 20.

While most didn’t give Graham much of a chance, some (myself included) held out hope that a Spanier nomination was in the cards. The resulting publicity for Penn State would have been awesome.  Also, the search for a new president would have allowed OS to speculate about who the next president would be. Wouldn’t that have been fun?  Oh well…that dream will have to wait, at least until Duncan messes up irreparably.

[HT: CHE]