None of this matters if they let the failing schools "out the back door" of test 're-norming' and other testing tricks - all of which are already in place for the corrupt establishment to utilize.

The doped white mice will do what their teachers tell them to do. They will blame Bush.

Going from one public school to another is no solution, BTW.

NCLB isn't a complete failure, but it is 90% worthless.

Until a nationally respected politician puts his reputation on the line and goes 200% full tilt against the "taxeater" unions/teachers (or a Steve Forbes spends $20 million on a huge campaign focused on one state), there will be no progress.

We have about a 2-5 year window to kill this beast. If we don't, they will eventually win. The Catholic and most Private Schools already buy their curricular claptrap.

Bruno:

Yes it is--most public schools are quite good.

Bruno: Isn't your argument "If we don't choose to win, we'll lose"? Yes, if the Republicans let themselves be railroaded by the MSM and the teachers' unions, we'll lose. Yes, if conservatives are so stupid that we let the best be the enemy of the good, we'll lose. Yes, if we're so used to losing that we won't even do our own thinking and just reflexively say that if Ted Kennedy is for it, he must be right and we must be wrong, we'll lose.

And we'll deserve to lose.

I don't include you in this at all (you seem to mostly get it), but so much of the conservative whinging right now seems to boil down to: we're so weak, we're so dumb, we're so easily rolled that George Bush is a traitor for even thinking that we could win any sort of subtle, complex, multi-year political maneuvering. This despite the fact that the administration has done the hard part and all we need to do now is simply not lose our nerve and not capitulate on the eve of victory.

David,

The whinging you and I hear is from those who are slowly coming to the realization that the conservative movement is no longer their own little tea-and-crumpets society.

Yes, NRO, I am referring to you. Yes, Tancredo, this movement will include Hispanics. Now, both you can go sulk in the corner (pun intended) while the rest of us conservatives move forward.

Public schools can't be wrested from the teachers unions vise-like grip until Republicans can be convinced that it needs doing. Ditto for other liberal outrages and media lies committed daily. Check out this report on Katrina from realclearpolitics.

Drudge reports that McCain blasted conservative pundits like Rush for making things worse when it's the odious Bill Kristol and his oh-so-brainy ego driven acolytes who are fueling the fire. Dennis Hastert opining on the constitutionality of FBI searches? Does he think the president needs lawyerly advice from a faceless fly-over-country B.P.O.E lodge member. N.B. Hastert is third in line for the presidency.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to get out of bed.

erp:

For Republicans it doesn't need doing--we're a white middle/upper class suburban party and our kids go to good public schools. We oppose vouchers because we don't want poor black urban kids wrecking those schools.

OJ,

The suburban public schools aren't good. They are just as bad as the city schools.

Of course, such an "extreme" statement needs debate and discussion, but an open mind will see the facts.

There are two things that allow suburban parents to live in denial. First, the testing systems in most states is hopelessly lame, and creates the pretense that the kids are "well-educated."

Second, the true source of the suburbs' better scores is all about socio-economic status, and has very little to do with spending, class size, or materials.

(We need not even discuss the billions spent on extracurricular aids like "Hooked on Phonics.")
___

Further, none of this even touches on the fact that the schools everywhere do all they can to undermine the "republicanism" you laud as the base of Anglosphere.

While you and I seem to agree that vouchers/scholarships are the solution, the fact is that they won't come to pass in the cities if they aren't supported in the suburbs.

By propagating the myth that suburban schools are "good", you assist the NEA and their ilk.

Bruno:

That's just silly. Every generation of Americans thinks its education sysem is uniquely awful yet our kids just keep being the nest educated in the world. Vouchers are a convenient way for the Right to break a Democratic power base and benefit the religious institutions with which we're allied and a way for inner city blacks, who actually do have bad schools, to escape. But they won't matter to most people.

David,

On the broad issues, I'm one of those making the exact same case that you are making. On the subject of schools, the "industry" has effectively purchased both parties at the level that controls education policy (the state).

Using the "win/lose" defintion above, I make the case that we won't win unless we attack the entire system relentlessly and aggresively.

If NCLB works to change the dyanamic, that's fine. For now, and here in IL in particular, NCLB is wholly co-opted. The failing schools are "Bush's fault", and the FEDS give the schools a "free pass."

It's maddening.

All schools will fail, but the students will get the passes out.

OJ,

Our schools have been increasingly "uniquely awful" since about the 1960s. Each "generation" has, for the most part, been right.

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America: Land of the Functionally Illiterate (source OECD - 2001)

America is now dead last amongst 18 nations in literacy levels, with staggeringly high levels of illiteracy threatening to make the US incapable of competing in the knowledge-based economy of the future.

Testing by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development shows 59% of American high school graduates between the ages of 16 and 25 are functionally illiterate, incapable of coping "adequately" with the complex demands of everyday life.

That number is 18% worse than the country with the next lowest level of literacy -- Poland, which rings in at 50%.

Ironically, a comparison of people aged 50 to 54, the United States came in first in literacy education levels. Amongst 30 to 34-year-olds the US is tied for second. That number false to fifth place for people aged 25 to 29.
___

For a "Pro-Public ED", viewpoint, go here..

http://www.asbj.com/achievement/aa/aa2.html

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to blow apart the BS in the piece.

___

Yes OJ, our "best" may still be the best. But theie number is dwindling, and they are weighted down by being forced to support the most expensive education system in the world producing the highest number of ignorant (and in many cases, un-educable) children.

Bruno:

Those numbers are a function of our testing and education being universal. Test all adults rather than just those who finish high school and you get entirely different numbers.

Bruno: Do you know 10 people in that age group? Are 6 of them illiterate?

My apologies to those living in our heartland for my injudicious comment above. My husband has been an active Rotarian for forty years, so I know how hard lodge members work to help those less fortunate and I have the utmost respect for the Midwestern Bros as well as those living all over the rest of the globe. I hope that no offense was taken because none was intended.

My deepest regret is using the foul-phrase, fly-over country which I believe was coined by The New Yorker magazine's Henrik Hertzberg, arguably the most arrogant human being ever born.

Back to the topic on hand. oj. You sound like Pauline Kael who couldn't understand how Nixon got elected because nobody she knew voted for him.

Readers of this blog probably won't be able to find that six out of ten of our acquaintances are illiterate, but we're not a very good statistical sampling. For one, we're addicts of the written word and for us, nothing is as much fun as "discussing" the affairs of the day online with other like-minded junkies.

I know you don't think anecdotal evidence proves anything, but I think it often provides the example that proves the rule. This morning I was in Lowe's trying to order the patio door that was advertised in the big multi-paged, full color flyer inserted in last Sunday's papers.

The thirty-something salesman didn't have a clue. The first thing he said was he hadn't seen the flyer, but I had anticipated that and had a copy with me, then he either couldn't do the arithmetic or couldn't read the text.

He seemed baffled that two 3' French doors and two 1' side lites came to a total of eight feet. This with the picture in front of him. I was getting a bit irritated and asked if I could speak to the manager of the department and . . . wait for it, he is the manager.

Luckily an older guy came along, found the item in the computer, ordered it and in three weeks, I'll be the proud owner of an old condo with new patio doors.

erp:

Thirty years ago he worked in a factory where you didn't get to see how stupid he is.

erp:

Right on about Hertzberg. Just remember, his claim to fame is that he worked for Jimmy Carter. 'Nuff said.

The US is always going to trail the world in math and science, for some of the same reasons that we are never (again) going to be the world's low-cost manufacturing leader. We may not have the best overall student body (as a nation), but we will always have Cal Tech, Carnegie-Mellon, MIT, etc. And many fine state schools (of science and engineering).

We have all seen these surveys with the USA ranked near the bottom. Where would we have ranked in 1920? 1935? 1950? I don't think it would have been number 1.