Ex-Aides Break With Bush on 'No Child Left Behind': Conservatives Giving Vent to Doubts

[DeepModem Mom]

WP: Ex-Aides Break With Bush on 'No Child'
Conservatives Giving Vent to Doubts; Support for Opt-Out Proposals Grows
By Amit R. Paley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 26, 2007; Page A04

President Bush urged lawmakers yesterday to renew No Child Left Behind, his landmark education initiative, but one of his biggest political liabilities in achieving that goal comes from an unlikely source: his former aides.

Five years after they helped craft and implement the initiative, senior administration officials from Bush's first term are speaking out against the law with increasing boldness. The shift, combined with mounting criticism from both the political right and left in Congress, is causing supporters of the law to worry that it might not win renewal this year....

Bush might have expected that Eugene W. Hickok, a relative of the legendary frontier lawman Wild Bill Hickok and the original sheriff of No Child Left Behind, would support his drive for renewal. As the No. 2 Education Department official in Bush's first term, Hickok wrangled states and schools into compliance with the law so forcefully that foes called him "Wild Gene."

But Hickok, who is now urging Congress to revamp the initiative, said in a recent interview that he always harbored serious doubts about the federal government's expanding reach into the classroom....

The rift among Bush's advisers mirrors a GOP intraparty struggle that erupted in March when 57 Republican lawmakers -- including Sen. Mel Martinez (Fla.), a former Bush housing secretary -- signed onto bills that would allow states to opt out of key No Child Left Behind mandates. The legislation, which the White House has criticized, draws on a proposal Bush himself made in early 2001 but quickly dropped....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/25/AR2007062501897.html

[glowing]

1. Florida started the standardized b.s. before it was mandatory...

and the education program is disgusting now.

[DeepModem Mom]

2. I don't think I've heard a parent in any state express satisfaction with NCLB. nt

[blondeatlast]

5. Even in my son's former very red area school, NCLB was universally disliked.

When I told parents that part of NCLB included allowing their child's private info to be given to the military, most were shocked. They had no idea.

[DemoTex]

3. Like "Compassionate Conservatism," NCLB was just another platitude.

No Child Left Behind: Just another empty slogan from a regime whose very existence depends on empty slogans. Everybody, including most in the GOP, is on to the Bu$hco game now.

[blondeatlast]

6. Ah, but it's really not empty--just deceptive.

Among the other things obscured by the sloggan is the fact that it is being used as a military recruiting tool.

Most parents have no idea about this until it's too late.

[blondeatlast]

4. The Dems need to go on the offensive on NCLB. Public School parents

still way outnumber private school ones, and we are nearly all diappointed, if not downright disgusted, with NCLB (I fall into the disgusted category).

Public education is hurting badly and the Dems can easily make this a very winning issue without tying themselves into knots. NCLB has GOT to go.

[LWolf]

7. Good. Now if Ted Kennedy and George Miller

will just join them, maybe we'll see NCLB not re-authorized this year.

[Frustratedlady]

8. NCLB has hurt more than helped.

My daughter and two granddaughters teach school and are so disgusted with NCLB...not only the concept, but the fact that they end up teaching to the test, rather than following the long-time successful curriculum. They SO want to get back to teaching.

The records they are required to keep (on top of the normal student reports and tracking) take up a lot of time they would rather use interacting with the students. The need for meetings is unreal and the constant threat of being tagged as a school in need of correction is always hanging over their heads.

George is the child who needs to be left behind.