• By WILL SENTELL
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Feb 3, 2010 - Page: 1A

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The president of the state’s top school board Tuesday criticized comments by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan that Hurricane Katrina was the “best thing” that happened to the education system in New Orleans.

“I have a hard time agreeing with him,” said Keith Guice, of Monroe, president of the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“I do not think that Katrina was good for anyone,” Guice added. “I just cannot describe Katrina as good.”

But state Superintendent of Education Paul Pastorek said that, without the 2005 storm, New Orleans public schools would not have shown improvements like they have in the past five years.

“Taken out of context, you might say that was a strong statement or that the statement seemed too strong,” Pastorek said of Duncan’s comments.

“But when you take it in context with what was going on, I think it is a fairly accurate statement,” he added.

Duncan discussed the issue in an interview last week on a cable TV show called “Washington Watch With Roland Martin,” which was set for airing last Sunday.

“I spent a lot of time in New Orleans, and this is a tough thing to say, but let me be really honest,” Duncan was quoted as saying in a story recounting the episode in The Washington Post on Saturday.

“I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina,” he said.

“That education system was a disaster, and it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that ‘we have to do better.’”

On Tuesday ABC News said Duncan apologized for his Katrina comments.

“It was a boneheaded statement,” Tracie Washington, managing co-director of the Louisiana Justice Institute in New Orleans, said of Duncan’s original observations.

“I am glad he has retracted it,” she added.