When Liberals and Conservatives Conspire, Failure Ensues

Several decades ago, the liberal and conservative forces teamed up to close the state mental hospitals. The conservatives wanted to save money,.decrease the size of a state enterprise and prove that private charities (combined with new drugs) could solve the problem. The liberals were fired up over the civil rights of the mentally disabled and the abominable living conditions shown by exposes like the Titticum Follies.

The result today is the horrid phenomenon of street people. This happened because the coalition never made sense, it had conflicting goals.

Now we face the same problem with the schools.

Failing Schools Strain to Meet U.S. Standard - New York Times: "“When you have a state like California with so many schools up for restructuring,” said Heinrich Mintrop, an education professor at the University of California, Berkeley, “that taxes the capacity of the whole school change industry.” As a result, the law is branding numerous schools as failing, but not producing radical change — leaving angry parents demanding redress. California citizens’ groups have sued the state and federal government for failing to deliver on the law’s promises. “They’re so busy fighting No Child Left Behind,” said Mary Johnson, president of Parent U-Turn, a civic group. “If they would use some of that energy to implement the law, we would go farther.” Ray Simon, the deputy federal secretary of education, said states that ignored the law’s demands risked losing federal money or facing restrictions on grants. For now, Mr. Simon said, the department is more interested in helping states figure out what works than in punishment. “Even a state has to struggle if it takes over a school,” he said. A federal survey last year showed that in 87 percent of the cases of persistently failing schools, states and school districts avoided wholesale changes in staff or leadership. "

I may be the sole liberal and the sole conservative who still supports this one part of Bush's legacy. BUT to mke NCLB work, there needs to be two things that offend the proponenets of one side or the other:

Conservatives: It costs money t fix a problem like this.
Liberals: It si nmot true that ALL kids are equally abgle to learn AND it is not true that schools can solve community problems.

We are headed in a bad direction once again.