You're Toxic, I'm Slipping Under

As Ed Kilgore observes "The one, and only one, truly bipartisan initiative Bush engaged in was the 'No Child Left Behind' initiative, based largely on prior moderate Democratic proposals, and relying heavily on support from Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. George Miller." This by way of looking at Peter Baker's Washington Post on the dim prospects for NCLB reauthorization during the current congress that correctly places the collapse of the coalition Bush, Kennedy, and Miller had put together (though not particularly the Bush/Kennedy/Miller partnership as such) due to defections to the right and to the left.

One flaw in the piece, however, is that it seems to me to suffer from the problem Paul Glastris identified as the media's tendency to attribute equal responsibility for rising polarization irrespective of the facts. Here, Baker correctly quotes Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling referring to the difficulty of making progress in "a toxic environment" that exists in Washington.

The specific problem here, however, isn't that the "environment" is toxic, it's that Bush is toxic -- he's been such a bad and unpopular president that many people believe anything he supports must be a plot to destroy the Republic and certainly nobody feels like sticking their neck out for such a heavily Bush-branded initiative especially under circumstances where failure to reauthorize the law doesn't actually lead to its elements vanishing. That's why many education people assume that while large elements of the NCLB framework will probably live on through the next education overhaul, the name "No Child Left Behind" is probably dead. NCLB, however, is just the current name for the more prosaic Elementary and Secondary Education Act and a new president not committed to the NCLB brand could just propose some modifications to the law (and everyone favors some kind of modifications), call it something else, and probably enjoy more success than Bush.

Comments

Sheesh, Matt, nobody serious believes NCLB is a plot to destroy the Republic; that's Cheney's department.

NCLB is only a plot to destroy the public schools.

Oh, and let's hope for all our sakes that it isn't merely Bush who is toxic, but the entire Conservative movement.

Posted by lambert strether | November 5, 2007 9:46 AM

Matt says: "a new president not committed to the NCLB brand could just propose some modifications to the law (and everyone favors some kind of modifications), call it something else, and probably enjoy more success than Bush."

I'm not sure that's true. Perhaps the biggest reason NCLB is not being reauthorized now is because Republicans are defecting. In 2001 they held their noses and voted for the biggest expansion of federal authority over education in history because of loyalty to Bush. This year they have no such compunctions. A new law with slight modifications (and a different name) could probably pass this year, if Republicans were behind it. But they're not.

Posted by Bob | November 5, 2007 9:53 AM

Never thought I'd see the day when Matt would be quoting Britney Spears.

Posted by Glenn | November 5, 2007 10:16 AM

NCLB has its good points, most notably that it has forced some truly bad school districts and entire states, for that matter, to try to reform what they've been doing poorly. But standardized tests in the 3Rs is a terrible assessment method, and trying to modify behavior with threats (fund cut-offs, teacher demotion, school closing) is not well-received as a behavior modifier, especially when used against educators, who actually know something about what works.

Of course lambert is right: NCLB was a tactic to smear public educatio--and its unions. Fortunately voter support for public education has only grown stronger. The backlash to NCLB is largely driven by parent complaints. Sadly, good guys Kennedy and Miller got conned. Now they tweak, spin and make excuses while promoting continued (inadequate) funding of a failed policy with no exit strategy. Margaret Spelling is to education what Gen. Petraeus is to Iraq, Karen Hughes is to democracy promotion, and Cadaver Head is to domestic security

Posted by W Action | November 5, 2007 2:53 PM

Fixing the law would have been good, I have to say I have mixed views on this outcome. NCLB is bad, and I'm not happy to see schools living under it for two more years (seems safe to assume Congress will continue with NCLB in its current form until after the 2008 election and then try again). But parts of the reauthorization truly were an even bigger step back than what we have now.

Posted by Steve | November 5, 2007 4:25 PM