George Will's Right is Wrongerest

I posted an initial lamentation over George Will’s recent writing on No Child Left Behind with the label of the post as George Will's Right and Wrong on NCLB and later realized that title was both generous and also multi-faceted. I'll try one in the style of a Bushism this time. And I'll also go at the actual writing of Will, in italics below, in a stream of consciousness approach with parentheses and the like as the method. Here goes ...

No Child Left Behind, supposedly an antidote to the "soft bigotry of low expectations," has instead spawned lowered standards. The law will eventually be reauthorized because doubling down on losing bets (like Rove and Bu$hCo did with getting the American public to put Dubyah back in in 2004?) is what Washington does. But because NCLB contains incentives for perverse (I'm thinking of Senator Larry Craig for some reason) behavior, reauthorization should include legislation empowering states to ignore it (As in Bu$hCo's signing statements?).

NCLB was passed in 2001 as an extension (Perhaps an extension yet I'd argue it really began in 1983 under Reagan when Chester Fnn, Diane Ravitch and .... brought us the Nation at Risk report. Several claim it to be a "manufactured crisis" and I'd not doubt them although I can also accept we've got plenty to do better as educators in our nation.) of the original mistake, President Lyndon Johnson's Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which became law in the year of liberals (Like MLK, Jr. and others in the Civil Rights Movement?) living exuberantly — 1965, when Great Society excesses (And you can't get any more excessive for right wingers like George than a government actually working toward ending poverty, promoting equality, improving education - via programs like Head Start for instance, rejuvenating cities, and protecting the environment?) sowed the seeds of conservatism's subsequent ascendancy. (Are we forgetting the Southern Strategy and the white backlash against busing that your party exploited so adroitly?) ESEA was the first large Washington intrusion into education K through 12. (What about Brown vs. Board Mr. Will?)

NCLB was supported by Republicans reluctant to vastly expand that intrusion but even more reluctant to oppose a new (Even Republicans knew Gore won!) president's signature (Fraudulent as to his Texas Miracle but signature I suppose?) issue. This expansion of Washington's role in the quintessential state and local responsibility was problematic, for three reasons.

First, most new ideas are dubious (At least for conservatives they are!), so federalization increases the probability of continentwide (George, the continent includes Canada and Mexico dude!) mistakes. Second, education is susceptible to pedagogic fads (OK, I'll give him this one. It's because something like 83% of the factors involved in learning are outside of the control of the education system but I'm offering excuses here I 'll confess.) )and social engineering fantasies (Like the neo-cons as to Iraq?), so it is prone to producing continental regrets. Third, America always is more likely to have a few wise state governments than a wise federal government.

With mandated data collections — particularly tests of "adequate yearly progress" in reading and math — NCLB was supposed to generate information that would enable schools to be held accountable for cognitive outputs commensurate with federal financial inputs. (Here's the problem George and Right Wingers ... You are using a business model as to learning.) Bad data would make schools reform.

Fourteen months ago, the president said, "The gap is closing. ... How do we know? Because we're measuring." But about those measurements ... (Amen. The measurements are of learning one damn fact or discreet skill usually. You truly can't measure if a teacher helped a kid learn to think, question, marshall evidence, entertain new perspectives, etc.)

NCLB requires states to identify, by criteria they devise, "persistently dangerous schools." But what state wants that embarrassment? The Washington Post recently reported that last year, of America's approximately 94,000 public schools, the "persistently dangerous" numbered 46. There were none among the 9,000 schools in amazingly tranquil California.

NCLB's crucial provisions concern testing to measure yearly progress toward the goal of "universal proficiency" in math and reading by 2014. This goal is America's version of Soviet grain quotas, solemnly avowed (Like Dubyah did with New Orleans after Katrina? Or how he's handled finding Osama? Or ... )but not seriously constraining. Most states retain the low standards they had before; some have defined proficiency down.

So says "The Proficiency Illusion," a report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which studies education reform (like vouchers!). Its findings include:
The rationale for reform was that expectations would become more rigorous and uniform, but states' proficiency tests vary "wildly" in difficulty, "with 'passing scores' ranging from the 6th percentile to the 77th." Indeed, "half of the reported improvement in reading, and 70 percent of the reported improvement in mathematics, appear idiosyncratic to the state test." In some states, tests have become more demanding; but in twice as many states, the tests in at least two grades have become easier. (Try the NAEP George.)

(Here's where George Will gets a C+ for summarizing an article from Human Events, Ronald Reagan's favorite publication allegedly and obviously a fair and accurate source of information if you're a right wing nut job.)

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a Republican who represents western Michigan's culturally cohesive Dutch Calvinist (Reckon if educational progress is predestined for Peter?) communities, opposed NCLB from the start because he thought it would "tear apart the bond between the schools and the local communities." He believes the reauthorized version of NCLB will "gut" accountability. He is gloomily sanguine about that because he thinks accountability belongs at the local level anyway, and because removing meaningful accountability removes NCLB's raison d'etre. (Real conservatives don't write in French George.) He proposes giving states the option of submitting to Washington a "Declaration of Intent" to reclaim full responsibility for K-12 education. Such states would receive their portion of K-12 funds as block grants. (George neglects to mention that Bu$hCo pulled the funds they'd promised the Left's supporters of NCLB.)

But Rep. Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican, warns that Washington, with its unsleeping hunger for control, steadily attaches multiple strings to block grants. He proposes to allow states to opt out from under NCLB's mandates and regulations and to give residents of those states tax credits equal to the portion of their taxes their state would have received back in federal funds for K-12 education. (Garrett's program surely seems like it opens the way to school vouchers. Plus, it would seem to be a bear in administration.)

NCLB intensified what Paul Posner of George Mason University (Notorious Libertarian school!) calls "coercive federalism." Kenneth Wong and Gail Sunderman of Brown University and the Harvard Civil Rights Project, respectively, say NCLB "signaled the end of 'layer cake' federalism and strengthened the notion of 'marble cake' federalism, where the national and subnational governments share responsibilities in the domestic arena." Hoekstra's and Garrett's proposals would enable states to push Washington toward where it once was and where it belongs regarding K through 12 education: Out.

George can surely do better that this. Peace ... or War!