In other words, conservatives when in power use regulation precisely the same way liberals do: to punish groups they don't like. Good. Couldn't happen to a more deserving, or less comprehending, group of people than the NEA.

--NCLB sets up public schools to fail, setting the stage for private education companies to move in on the $400 billion spent annually on K-12 education ($500 billion according to recent statements by Secretary of Education Rod Paige).--

$500 Bill seems kind of low.

Defense is just $450 billion. Remember that the next time someone makes a crack about the military and bake sales.

I have a buddy who's teaching second grade. His complaints about his job convince me that NCLB really was a full frontal assault on the public schools.

It's too bad the Democrats forced us to implement these reforms in a way that maximizes the misery of teachers like my friend.

On the contrary , james. Maximizing the misery of people like your friend is the whole point of the exercise. Liberals have had a spectacular run of success this last century, managing to get their boot up everybody else's arse while cocooning themselves in subsidized schools and workplaces. The genius of NCLB is that it finds a way to infiltrate a tiny bit of the grief the rest of us feel into one of the Left's sancta sanctora. Tell your friend to ponder the wisdom of limited government.

After reading the first couple of paragraphs of this article, it seems the author is more interested in retaining the political power of the teacher's unions and the Democratic Party rather than helping schoolchildren actually get a quality education.

One of my liberal friends is a public school administrator and she really doesn't like NCLB because it challenges the status quo and it makes her work harder. Tis a pity.

No Child Left Behind is a fraud.

But even if it were not a fraud, even if it were really meant to do what its backers say they want done, that isn't going to happen.

One of the members of my Wednesday tech discussion group runs a home schooling curriculum agency. I am fascinated by the way this business (not just hers but all of them) operates -- just like the dame schools of the 19th century. No standards at all, except create the 'content' at the lowest possible cost.

If public schools have problems, replacing them with schlock is not going to be an improvement.

The Wal-Martization of public education will generate the same thing Wal-Mart generates -- mountains of unusable junk.

NCLB allows states to load up their AYP requirements in the later years, so that even school whiich are making AYP now could not possibly be doing so in the last years of the program.

It is so good a plan for doing to public education as we know it we did to welfare as we knew it, that it is hard to imagine that it got as far as it did. You see, now the burden of proof and persuasion will be upon the school people who will be trying to beg off at the end. This burden cannot be met, and the tide of change is very much running against the status quo. It turn out that the ragheads were not the only people who had it handed to them in the last election.

As I have said elsewhere, the system is beyond reform. Its basic educational concepts--things like "inclusion" and "equity" and "multiculturalism"--are so flawed as to be incapable of resuscitation. These ideas, and the deprevation of parental choice required to perpetuate them, are so central to the system that it cannot be fixed. Only complete reconfiguration will help, and NCLB is the way to get it.

Sandy - $400 billion is about $7000 per school-age kid. That seems about right.

It also means we could give $3k tax credits for every K-12 age student in private or home schooling, and if 50% of students take us up on it, it only costs about $100 billion. Small change for the federal government. And with a class size of 20, that's $60k per teacher -- enough to find a good-quality school.

No, Harry, NCLB's not a fraud. It does exactly what it was intended to do. Do pay attention.

The demand for 100% of students being labelled 'proficient' shows just what a steaming pile of monkey excrement NCLB is. The politicians can bloviate and posture as much as they want but human intelligence remains distributed on a normal curve and 50% of all people have IQs under 100. Expecting someone with an IQ of 90 to do Elementary Algebra is like expecting Pee Wee Herman to lift the Empire State Building.

What is going to happen is quite simple. The definition of 'proficient' will be watered down to the point that it becomes less than meaningless. This way the taxpayers' money keeps flowing to the educrat scam-artists of the private and public sector. The slimy magazine publisher from Tennessee, whose name I forgot, turned education entrepreneur is a prime example of the former. Just go to meeting of your state school boards association, throw a roll in any direction and you will hit one of the latter.

If you doubt what I'm saying, compare an SAT today with the one offered ten years ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago. Pretty much anyone who got a 1400 in 1980 would get a 1600 today.

The bottom line is that most parents, i.e. voters, do not care one whit about education. Anyone who has ever gone to a parent-teacher night knows this to the marrow of his bones. They care about grades, about diplomas, certificates, bells and whistles of various kinds, which is why schools waste so much time and money on nonsense. That will not change without a dramatic change of the culture, perhaps a wholesale immigration of the Hindu and Chinese Mittelstand.

Harry:

Is your concern standards or universality? You have to face the music and make a choice some time, or at least find an equilibrium to argue for. Given the popularity and seriousness of the home school movement, whose proponents tend to be deadly serious about education and whose products out-perform regularly, surely your dame school analogy is either isolated or feeble.

The reason I ask is that I see lots of progressive spirits duck the issue of universality by making unsustainable arguments about quality and hoping no one will challenge them. It happens up here all the time about medicare. Proponents will bluster unconvincingly about the fantastic quality of the care when what they are really trying to say is that interminable delays and inefficiencies are ok as long as they are suffered equally by all.

Quiet, Peter, Harry's wearing his magical thinking hat. That's the one that lets him see that private actors are always either incompentent, or frauds, or both; while public employees are noble but underfunded.

"for punishment is not an effective means to achieve either individual or institutional change."

Of course it is. Punishment is the best way to achieve behavior change.

So, Harry, you are in favor of a system that turns out 'students' at the lowest possible cost [to the teacher] and the highest possible cost to society?

We've been teaching our 5 year old god-son to read. In two days, he's learned 500 words. Whenever he complains about learning 10 words, we force him to learn 20. Works very well.

It doesn't matter what a kid is taught --- only that the parents are involved and the kid is forced to sit for more than 2 minutes doing something he doesn't "feel" like doing.

The rest happens on its own.

I thought we spent more, or is that just federal $?

Which is about 6-8% of school funding.

Besides, Bart, at this point, I'll take what I can get, being 37th in the world in math and science. We're losing our edge.

Sandy,

Wouldn't it be simpler and wiser to emulate what the top nations like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Slovenia do? Their per pupil expenditure is a fraction of ours, since they ain't into bells and whistles.

If you want to think intelligently about school spending, ask yourself when you live in Bergen County which has a per pupil expenditure of about $13000. If an average class has 20 kids, how many teachers are making $260,000 in salary and benefits?

Harry:

That must be why home schoolers took the first three places at the National Spelling Bee this year.

Harry,

Your anecdote about your associate in the homeschool curriculum business is interesting but flawed. Don't all businesses try to minimize costs? Do you honestly believe parents, who are interested in giving their kids a serious education, aren't capable of distinguishing good from bad?

Even more to the point, what in G-d's name, man, makes you believe for one nanosecond that the politicians, scam artists and bureaucrats who run the public school system are even in the slightest bit interested in whether any kid anywhere learns anything? They have an essentially captive audience and a virtually unlimited pocket to pick.

I'm truly amazed. Normally, I respect your opinions even when I disagree. You and I have differing values but your logical powers are generally decent and you are honest enough to admit error. But the assumptions you are making about both public and homeschool education are dramatically far from the mark.

Sure, there are undoubtedly swindlers, mountebanks, charlatans, and scam artists in the home school business trying to fleece the ignorant out of their hard-earned cash by putting fear of what goes on in public school into their heads. And there are parents who are homeschooling who probably have no business doing so and have something other than the best interests of the child at heart. However, unless you are affluent enough to live in an area where the public school is like a well-financed private school(e.g. Great Neck, NY, Ridgewood, NJ, Greenwich, CT), there is far more truth to the negative stereotype of public education than you imply.

Frankly, if I had kids, I'd be pretty much split between the decision to move to one of the aforementioned suburbs or to homeschool. Private education is out and Jewish parochial education presents an entirely different set of issues, with which I don't wish to concern myself. Private schools, especially the farther up the income scale you go, are filled with kids about whom the parents' attitude is 'we pay you so give us what we want and we don't want to do anything.If they cause a problem, you deal with it.' I will not allow my kids to develop the attitudes of spoiled rich snotnoses. $40,000/yr to send a kid to Spence with a skanky slut like Paris Hilton, 'No I don't think so.'

The public school system I attended in NJ was almost perfectly situated in the middle of the table on virtually every statewide measure, including population distribution. And it was, to be generous, abysmal for the most part.

Randall: Watch what happens when that fluently reading 5-year old gets to public school. He or she is golng to be forced to spend about 2 1/2 hours per day "learning" a phonics-based phoneme recognition system, to enable the child to "sound out" words which have bean sight-read for months.

I have seen first-graders who have achieved "possibles" on standardized reading assessments (e.g., 147 words correct out of 147 in one minute) forced to spend their time doing phoneme recognition drills designed to benefit those who test out at 5 or 6 words correct on the same test--inclusion and equity, don't you know?

Randall: Watch what happens when that fluently reading 5-year old gets to public school. He or she is golng to be forced to spend about 2 1/2 hours per day "learning" a phonics-based phoneme recognition system, to enable the child to "sound out" words which have bean sight-read for months.

I have seen first-graders who have achieved "possibles" on standardized reading assessments (e.g., 147 words correct out of 147 in one minute) forced to spend their time doing phoneme recognition drills designed to benefit those who test out at 5 or 6 words correct on the same test--inclusion and equity, don't you know?

Bart, where in my post did I say public school doesn't need any changes?

Nowhere.

I get the full spectrum on home schooling right in this community. My paper (though I had nothing to do with the stories) has made a great deal of the performance of 2 lads who are winning all sorts of awards. Of course, their parents are both Ph.Ds and, apparently, pressing them very hard.

The stories my paper does not write, but which I am aware of, are of the kids who are being homeschooled but spend all day surfing. I've mentioned this a while back.

I'm not the education writer, I'm the business reporter. I was interviewing the owner of the biggest surf shop in town one day and commented on the number of kids in there who presumably ought to be in school.

Your assertion that parents want what's best for their kids only works if we all agree what's best.

I could -- and should -- write a book about the problems that public schools have to deal with. Schools are not the best way to deal with many of these problems, but we force it on them anyway.

One thing I am sure of. NCLB and the destruction of the common schools will not provide a thing for these kids.

joe's right. I misspoke. NCLB is in fact going to do what its authors intend. I should have said that the selling of it is a fraud.

Harry,

Fair enough. You are 100% correct about the myriad of problems faced by public schools which are not faced by private, parochial or homeschools situations. Schools are forced to deal with health issues, societal problems, family issues, etc. that they cannot cope with, as they have the kid for only 6-8 hours out of a 24 hour day.

The difference in our position is perhaps that I see most schools as currently doing a lousy job, with lots of good people stuck fighting what is essentially a rear-guard action. My father used to describe teaching in a NYC high school as making him feel like a soldier on Hadrian's Wall. If you observe the behavior and dress of the 'students' you can understand his feelings. They should just dye themselves blue to make the picture complete.

I pointedly state that some parents homschool, not out of an interest in education, but out of an interest in indoctrination, or to get cheap labor. My point, perhaps poorly stated, was that a parent, who wanted to educate his child seriously at home and who was reasonably intelligent and well-read, was perfectly capable of distinguishing between the Harold Hills and the Jaime Escalantes, the con men and the dedicated teachers.

Beyond a limited concern with a kid having a set of skills to become a responsible citizen, enabling him to avoid being a public charge or a criminal, the state, i.e. you and I, has no interest in what education the kid gets, whether his parents teach him Latin or welding or both.

My view of NCLB is probably even more dismissive than yours.

I am not even a big fan of homeschooling by dedicated parents who are competent to do it.

The term 'common school' has meaning for me. Not to Orrin, I know, who dotes on wedge issues. I'm more a big tent guy myself.

To my mind, the common school movement was not nearly as much about the 3 R's as about turning out ordinary Americans who had some conception of what the other Americans were all about.

You don't get that at home, and you don't get much in a religious school, as I can personally attest.

And you might not get much in a N.Y.C. public school these days, either. My daughter-in-law teaches art to special ed. kids in N.Y.C. She could tell you stories. . . .

Harry, my view is that homeschooling is a rational response by people who see the cesspool that much of public education has become, not that it is a good thing in the abstract. If American high schools were run like French lycees, German gymnasiums and the old British grammars, there would be no need for homeschooling.

You are correct to be concerned about how we are losing opportunities to meet Americans different from ourselves. The draft, or conscription, used to take care of that. Does living in a gilded ghetto like Great Neck or Chappaqua solve that problem? But when there is such a grotesque disparity in the quality of public schools, what choice do we really have?

It's very funny when I see Jewish Democratic Party apparatchiks. I grew up with them, went to temple and Hebrew School with them, summer camp with them, bar mitzvahs, seders, everything. I can predict what they will say before they say it, their cluelessness about Red State America is a direct product of the insularity of the gilded ghettos of the North Shore of Long Island, the Five Towns, Bergen County, West Essex, Fairfield County etc.

Religious education can be downright scary. I have cousins who were born here, who have well-educated parents who attend Jewish parochial schools. They have accents. My parents and I all worked very hard to eliminate Jewish aspects of our speech when we are in public, but these kids sound like Jackie Mason. It's very upsetting.

I have been well satisfied with the public schools my children went to.

The things I didn't care for are not the things that destroying the common school movement will improve.

Harry, then you should count yourself among the fortunate. Where did you send them by the way? I've heard Hawaii's schools are horrible.

What worries me about public school and does homeschooling address the issue?

1. Physical safety. The recurring theme of bullying, and far worse, felonious behavior going unpunished even in middle-class suburban schools is unacceptable. In homeschooling circumstances there are no bullies.

2. The civilizing function. Children need to learn that they aren't the only people in the world and that every one else has rights too. Public schools used to emphasize this with dress codes, silent passing, all manner of enforcement of what was essentially 'broken windows policing.' That is gone today. If children learn their interplay with others from parents who know how to conduct themselves in public rather than from the extras from Lord of the Flies that make up most public school populations, they are far better off.

3. Standards. When kids don't meet the standards, they just lower the standards. There are too many obvious examples to mention. Parents who are serious about standards do a far better job than schools do, the frequent examples of homeschooled kids winning national competitions or getting 1600 SAT scores is certainly evidence of that.

4. Indoctrination. We all having our tipping points on matters and mine came on public education when I was reading my free USA Today in a hotel somewhere, and I saw an article about mandatory volunteerism in public schools, makihg kids do some 'public service' to get a diploma. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. The notion that my kid should have to clean a stretch of road or spongebath the old folks or do some other duty for which I pay taxes is just offensive, it was no different from a medieval corvee. In Maryland, where the Supreme Court approved such a program, the 13th Amendment is apparently unknown. Schools spend more time praising the glories of backward sub-cultures, teaching values of failed polities or deviant behaviors than they do teaching the 3 R's. Kids are forced to learn utter crap like Adm. Peary's Black valet was a polar explorer. And of course, school administrators want abject obeidience through things like 'zero tolerance' policies, demonstrating that if you are in power you can do whatever you want. DARE programs, which emphasize that if you do drugs you get arrested, also feed this culture of autocratic excess. The school prepares you to take orders from a nanny-state or a mega-corporation, not to be capable of making your own decisions.

Concerns about homeschooling:

1. Socialization. This is a myth. Where in life are you around a peer group made up solely of people your own age? There are tons of places to have your kids meet other kids. Religious settings, Little League, MENSA, etc. If kids avoid the kind of niggling politicking and gratuitous cruelty that schools engender, what could be bad?

2. Diverse areas of expertise. This is a tougher issue, especially when you get to high school. I've asked people about this and had explained to me that you can always hire tutoring services for areas you don't know and you can also enrol your kid in a junior college lab as needed. Frankly, though, considering the educational level of most teachers I've met, I'm more qualified to teach high-school level in pretty much anything than they are, and I'm not that unusual. Also, learning new stuff together can be a bonding experience.

3. Meeting different types of people. In most suburban schools, the population is pretty much uniform. When there are mixed communities, in racial, religious and economic terms, the intergroup hostility becomes enormous. I went to a high school with middle class Jews, working class White Catholics, and underclass and working class Blacks. The intergroup hostility was so high it was like going to Beirut High School. There are plenty of places, outside of school, to meet kids who ain't like you but share a common interest giving you some common ground on which to relate. Go to a weekend chess tournament and you'll see.

THe 'common school movement' is on life support and it might just be best to send for Dr Kevorkian.