Before the Before the Arne Duncan news broke, I had thought Denver schools superintendent Michael Bennet was an excellent candidate for secretary of education. Now the Denver Post is reporting that Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter will name Bennet to Ken Salazar's vacating Senate seat. Bennet's major accomplishment took place this past summer, when during the opening days of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, he averted a strike and negotiated a new teachers' contract that preserved the city's groundbreaking merit pay system, Pro-Comp. Bennet is the brother of Atlantic editor James Bennet and the son of a former president of Wesleyan University. Ritter apparently chose Bennet for the seat over Bennet's boss, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who is known as a leader on urban environmental and sustainability issues. Both men seem accomplished and progressive, so it is unclear why Ritter would have settled on Bennet. But the Senate could always use another education expert. --Dana Goldstein
