Bennett for U.S. education chief?

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Indiana schools Superintendent Tony Bennett gets prominent mention in Alyson Klein's speculative piece on potential Department of Ed leaders under a President Romney:

Often mentioned is Tony Bennett, Indiana's superintendent of Public Instruction, and one of the original members of Chiefs for Change. Bennett's been highly visible on education issues and has lots of fans among Republicans, including former Gov. Bush.

Still, in testifying before the House education committee, Bennett asked the feds to provide political cover ("guardrails") on K-12 reform efforts. Does that jibe with some Republicans' plans to shrink back the federal role? Would that matter?

Another problem for Bennett might be his enthusiastic support of the Common Core standards. He faced tough questions when he addressed an ALEC gathering last year and conservatives, particularly tea party members, despise anything that looks like a national school curriculum.

Now that he's facing reelection, Bennett is visiting more public schools than he likely did in all of his first three years in office, but his travel schedule last year seemed to suggest he was running for a much higher profile job.

The real surprise on Klein's list (or maybe it's not a surprise at all) is Arne Duncan, Obama's education chief. It should tell the current president something that his secretary of education is a plausible candidate for the same job in a GOP administration. How is it that two camps that disagree on virtually every issue find agreement on this one?