Fool Me Twice; Toward a National Education Ministry?

Never let it be said that I'm not open to sharing alternative points of view!  (Heck, I might even change my point of view -- now THAT would be a first! ;-)

My friends at the Fordham Foundation, authors of the outstanding Education Gadfly, wrote in response to my last email, in which I praised the NCLB Commission's report:

Before you get too excited about the NCLB Commission’s proposals, you might give our NRO article a read [below] (A wonkier, somewhat kinder version ran in Gadfly [http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/gadfly/issue.cfm?id=278#3249])  

Not all good ideas are good ideas to mandate from Washington.

Here's a summary of their critique:

With all the trappings of an IMPORTANT WASHINGTON EVENT, including the presence of the top Democrats and Republicans on the Senate and House education committees, the Commission on No Child Left Behind yesterday unveiled a report that should be called “No Idea Left Behind.” That’s not meant as a compliment.

With George W. Bush’s signature domestic program, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, headed for reauthorization, this bipartisan, blue-ribbon panel, led by two stellar ex-governors and funded by Gates and other big-deal private foundations under the aegis of the august Aspen Institute, was supposed to provide a blueprint for the law’s rewrite.

Quantitatively, it succeeded. Its sprawling 200-page report, capped with 75 separate recommendations, proffers solutions to almost every problem ailing U.S. education. What it doesn’t do is sketch a coherent vision for NCLB version 2.0.

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February 14, 2007, 5:00 a.m.

Fool Me Twice
No Child Left Behind again. Only worse.

By Chester E. Finn Jr. & Michael J. Petrilli, National Review Online
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODRhNGQ0NzJkNjc3OGQyOWViZGJjZmI0NzY4ZDhjMzk