On Nov. 8, one day after midterm elections nourished hopes that the Bush administration's disastrous policies of war, hate, lies, and greed might be derailed — or at least restrained — the president met the press. In the clumsy and inarticulate style that has become his trademark, Bush sought to regain his shaky political footing by outlining some goals for the next Congress:
I have learned that, you know, if you focus on the big picture — which in this case is our nation — and issues we need to work together on, you can get stuff done. For example, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act is going to come up for reauthorization. There's an area where we must work together for the sake of our children and for the sake of a competitive America. And I believe we can get a lot done.
If you care about public schools, watch out. If the president and Con-gress work together in the next two years to get more of the kind of "stuff done" on federal education policy that they have since Bush took office, things will get worse — not better — for public education.
As debate opens on reauthorizing NCLB, it's worth remembering that this very bad piece of legislation was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support the last time Democrats controlled the Senate. Here are some things Congress and Bush have "gotten done" through NCLB in the past five years:
They have turned the mania for standardized testing, which was already running high at the local and state levels, into a full-fledged, national plague. When NCLB was passed in 2002, 19 states gave annual reading and math tests in grades 3 through 8. Today, under federal mandate, all 50 do. More than 45 million tests annually. Next year science tests will be added. Eleven million more tests. These tests are polluting curriculum, promoting bad instruction, driving teachers and students crazy, and making a few large publishing companies rich. They are not improving schools or helping children.