Two articles from the Associated Press, via boston.com:

Name by name, Obama’s Cabinet taking shape

EDUCATION SECRETARY

Arne Duncan, chief executive officer of Chicago public schools.

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, D-Kan.

Linda Darling-Hammond, education professor at Stanford University.

Former Gov. Roy Barnes, D-Ga.

Potential Obama pick visits Education Department

A potential education secretary, Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan, visited the Education Department Thursday morning on what he said was a purely social call.

Duncan chatted over coffee with outgoing Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. He said the visit had nothing to do with the possibility of being chosen to serve in President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet. Duncan is among a handful of names mentioned as likely candidates for the education post.

“I was just meeting with Secretary Spellings; we’re hoping she comes to Chicago next week to talk about some of the work that she supports in Chicago,” Duncan said in a brief interview with The Associated Press.

Duncan is friendly with the president-elect, playing pickup basketball as well as touring schools with Obama. He said he has informally advised Obama but doesn’t know when the education job will be announced.

Update 12/7: Friday’s NYT column from David Brooks, “Who Will He Choose?“, speaks of Duncan, Darling Hammond, Michelle Rhee (District of Columbia) and Joel Klein (NYC).  He paints this choice as posing a choice between the “reform” view and the “establishment” view.

As in many other areas, the biggest education debates are happening within the Democratic Party. On the one hand, there are the reformers like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, who support merit pay for good teachers, charter schools and tough accountability standards. On the other hand, there are the teachers’ unions and the members of the Ed School establishment, who emphasize greater funding, smaller class sizes and superficial reforms.

During the presidential race, Barack Obama straddled the two camps. One campaign adviser, John Schnur, represented the reform view in the internal discussions. Another, Linda Darling-Hammond, was more likely to represent the establishment view. Their disagreements were collegial (this is Obamaland after all), but substantive.

In public, Obama shifted nimbly from camp to camp while education experts studied his intonations with the intensity of Kremlinologists. Sometimes, he flirted with the union positions. At other times, he practiced dog-whistle politics, sending out reassuring signals that only the reformers could hear.

Each camp was secretly convinced that at the end of the day, Obama would come down on their side. The reformers were cheered when Obama praised a Denver performance pay initiative. The unions could take succor from the fact that though Obama would occasionally talk about merit pay, none of his actual proposals contradicted their positions.

Obama never had to pick a side. That is, until now. There is only one education secretary, and if you hang around these circles, the air is thick with speculation, anticipation, anxiety, hope and misinformation. Every day, new rumors are circulated and new front-runners declared. It’s kind of like being in a Trollope novel as Lord So-and-So figures out to whom he’s going to propose.

What fun!  Read the whole thing.