NCLB Gets 3 Fs in Fairness, Flexibility, and Funding

The White House withdrawal strategy from their domestic quagmire could have been signaled yesterday by Mom Spellings, following George Miller's speech at the National Press Club where Miller abused previous research findings to continue an argument for reauthorization. Apparently, no one sent Miller a copy of the research announced yesterday, showing the expressed rationale for NCLB blown to smithereens by the same test results that these folks chose to live or die from. Now with Miller threatening to can the Bushie impossibility of 100 proficiency by 2014, the ed industry privatizers and the far right voucher and charter fanatics no longer have a reason to support this policy:

“While we all hope to see action on reauthorization soon, a comprehensive bill that has bipartisan support and holds firm to the goal of every child reading and doing math on grade level by 2014 is worth the wait,” Ms. Spellings said in a prepared statement.

The part of Miller's comments covered by the Times that were actually tied to reality:

In his speech, Mr. Miller acknowledged the many complaints about the No Child Left Behind law from school districts nationwide, saying: “Throughout our schools and communities, the American people have a very strong sense that the No Child Left Behind Act is not fair. That it is not flexible. And that it is not funded. And they are not wrong.”

No mention in Miller's speech of the commitment to democratic schooling or democratic values--none of that uplift that one might expect in carrying forward the reformist tradition of offering free quality schools to all American children. Just more technocratic bullshit.

The truth is, Mr. Miller, that this legislation is fatally ugly, and no amount of lipstick is going to make this pig look any better. Now if you can make it unattractive enough to offer the conservatives a way to retreat from their failed war against public education, then you might have saved your own own ass from the responsibility of 6 more years of sanctioned child abuse in America's schools. America's children, parents, and teachers (and your own legacy) are counting on you to fail.