Education Secretary Arne Duncan needs to learn that humility is a worthwhile trait to cultivate. When Texas Gov. Rick Perry entered the race for the GOP presidential nomination, Duncan thought that would be an opportune time to criticize the state of education in Texas.

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Texas’s school system “has really struggled” under Governor Rick Perry, a Republican candidate for president, and the state’s substandard schools do a disservice to children.

“Far too few of their high school graduates are actually prepared to go on to college,” Duncan said on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt” airing tonight and tomorrow. “I feel very, very badly for the children there.”

“You have seen massive increases in class size,” Duncan said of the Texas public school system during Perry’s terms as governor since December 2000. “You’ve seen cutbacks in funding. It doesn’t serve the children well. It doesn’t serve the state well. It doesn’t serve the state’s economy well. And ultimately it hurts the country.”

You know what’s coming, right?

But what about the fact, I responded, that on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), Texas' fourth- and eighth-graders substantially outperformed their peers in Chicago in reading and math?

"I would have to look at all the details, but there are real challenges in Texas. And like every other state, they should be addressed openly and honestly as in Illinois, as in Chicago, and everywhere else."

Confused? Me too, and I do this for a living. Overall, Texas students scored right around the national averages in reading and math on the NAEP. And according to an Aug. 17 report by the group that administers the ACT college-admissions exam, Texas high school graduates only narrowly trail national averages for college readiness. True, the national averages aren't great, but Texas is right there with the pack. So why is Duncan dissing the Lone Star State? Its minority students outperform minority students in Chicago, albeit by smaller margins. And with a high school graduation rate of about 73%, Texas may be slightly below the national average, but it's doing a lot better than Chicago, which only graduates about 56% of its students.

Of course, Duncan ran Chicago’s schools before Obama tapped him to be Education Secretary. And Duncan certainly has more direct responsibility for the state of Chicago’s schools than Perry does for Texas’.

In the future, Duncan would be advised to spend his time pushing paper in an unnecessary Washington bureaucracy than to dive into national politics.