Arne Duncan, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, is President-elect Barack Obama’s choice for Secretary of the Department of Education.

I hope someone asks Obama if Duncan’s new agency would be allowed to hold public meetings early in the morning, making it difficult for working parents to attend and participate.

Will he be allowed to require people to show up two hours early to sign-in to speak?

I’m not debating Duncan’s qualifications. I’m saying people should also be concerned with a track record of public access – and there is proof that getting public information from the Chicago Public Schools is often as difficult as sneaking gold from Fort Knox.

And it’s not just Arne’s agency.

City Hall, Board of Aldermen, City Colleges, Housing Authority, etc.

Chicago’s elected leaders and bureaucrats seem quite comfortable withholding public information. Withholding it from people who pay their salaries.

Withholding it from the people they are supposed to serve.

But Arne won’t be allowed to bring that Chi-Town attitude to Washington, right? After all, it’s a new dawn.