In some circles, punching No Child Left Behind is a way to basically say, I’m against Big Government. In fact, No Child Left Behind is a way to promote efficient government. In a lot of these debates, you don’t hear real detail or analysis about how to improve the law. In essence, it’s No Child Left Behind is big government. Well, No Child Left Behind basically says, If you’re going to fund [schools], like we’ve been doing for years, we in the federal government ought to demand accountability, which seems to me a very conservative principle. Yet some conservatives are saying No Child Left Behind is an improper role for federal government. In that case, it’s more philosophy than actual analysis of how No Child Left Behind works and its effectiveness.
NCLB, was a miserable failure. Bush cut the funding for it after he got it passed.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/a-decade-of-no-child-left-behind-lessons-from-a-policy-failure/2012/01/05/gIQAeb19gP_blog.html
Word, Word, Word. NCLB is not a conservative idea. NCLB is not a role for the federal government. The reason is the premise for the argument in the first place.
Education should be returned to the States. There is no reason whatsoever the federal government should play a role. OK, maybe a small one. The feds could have an advisory board set up to recommend courses of study, but otherwise it should be left to the States. It is how our Republic was set up. 50 (I know it was originally 13) different petri dishes of democratic experiments.
I could admit a role for the federal government in education just for the sake of argument (I don’t actually support it) and *still* rip NCLB to shreds as a program apparently designed by imbeciles. I mean, just look at the goals: 100% of children are supposed to pass these tests by what, 2014? (I forget, it doesn’t matter). What kind of Soviet bullshit is that? Perfection will be attained? Small-c conservatism would require that we start off with a healthy skepticism about our ability to improve things, not a ten-year plan to achieve perfection in education.
I always wonder why they plan actions for so many years, they don’t even will be there to see it done, as
a GOVERNMENT,
LET THEM PLAN FOR THEIR TERM,OF 4 YEARS, THEN THE BUDGET THEY NEED IS LOWER,
AND MORE AFFORDABLE FOR THE WHOLE COUNTRY, AND MORE READABLE BY AMERICANS TO SEE THE GOOD OR BAD RESULTS, SAME SHOULD BE FOR DEBTS ENCOUNTERED BY ONE GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE PASS ON THE NEXT, THEN THEY ARE MORE ACCOUNTABLE FOR EXCESS SPENDING ,EXCESS PUBLIC EMPLOYEES AND EXCESS AGENCY, FOR THEIR TERM, TO BE RE- EVALUATE
BY THE NEXT PRESIDENT, THAT WOULD RESTRAIN THE ONE IN POWER TO A SPENDING SPREE LIKE THIS ONE DID FROM THE BEGINNING OF HIS TERM, AND STILL ASKING FOR ANOTHER TRILLION,
CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? AND HE DOESN’T TELL WHERE THE PEOPLE’S MONEY IS BEING SPENT EITHER, OUTRAGEOUS.