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Rothstein offers an excellent critique

ArchPundit September 19, 2002 No Comments

Rothstein offers an excellent critique of the Leave No Child Behind Act.

You have to make a choice. Either you leave standards to the states and allow them to measure themselves or you institute standards nationwide. If you do it half-way, you create an incentive for low standards.

USA Today lists the number of failing schools by state that have to allow transfers to better schools. This isn’t really true because there isn’t enough room in other schools in the same district. But it sounds nice.

Here is a Rand Report on test scores over time to compare states.

Montana has more failing schools than does Missouri. Controlling for population that looks strange doesn’t it? Of course, it could be that Missouri has better students, right? Wrong, Montana does pretty good on nationally normed test compared to Missouri. So how are there more failing schools? Montana tries harder..

As Rothstein points out, even if you measure the same way, states performance is based on what their goals are. Arkansas has 0 failing schools? ROTFL….sure. Louisiana has 24? New Orleans itself should have 24 let alone the whole damn state.

Michigan has 1500? Michigan isn’t at the head of the pack, but it isn’t that bad. It is above average according to the Dept of Ed.

What does this mean for the future of education reform? Given state funding is dependent on this, states have every incentive to lower their standards. So it isn’t going to leave no child behind, it is going to leave every state behind.

One might also notice that Vermont and Iowa do better than the national average. Dean is pointing this out and how much it is going to cost states that have been effective in education in the past. It is a critical point.

A hell of an education president.

More on Bob Greene at

ArchPundit September 19, 2002 No Comments

More on Bob Greene at Chicago Magazine. I think he covers the issues very well and much better than the weird posts by Kaus.

Additionally, in the move on category he offers up Steve Johnson as a potential candidate. I like the idea and Johnson did some great work on TV and Media. Zorn would be okay, but frankly his best columns are when he does hard news. He does it to seldom, but when he does he adds an interesting perspective.

Another option, now that Chicago Magazine is a part of the Tribune family—Steve Rhodes.

At the end, Rhodes mentions Neil Steinberg of the Sun Times. The quote is quite funny:
“?I hope that Smarmy Nostalgist isn?t an actual job slot at the Tribune that they have to fill,? he said.”

He adds to that at Salon

His descriptions of Greene’s extracuriculars makes it clear why him and Michael Jordan got along so well.

Kinsley does a fine analysis

ArchPundit September 19, 2002 No Comments

Kinsley does a fine analysis of the “it’s just evil.”

TNR has posted its McBride

ArchPundit September 19, 2002 No Comments

TNR has posted its McBride story.

Via Tapped the administration is

ArchPundit September 19, 2002 No Comments

Via Tapped the administration is trying to reduce time for environmental reviews. EDF is challenging them and saying that projects aren’t significantly delayed by environmental review. Maybe the administration would like to provide another like they tried with fire reduction.

I’ve been rooting for McBride

ArchPundit September 18, 2002 No Comments

I’ve been rooting for McBride for some time. Right after Pete Peterson said he wouldn’t make the race after the terrorist attacks a year ago and McBride got in, I thought he would be a good candidate. However, it appears that I might have my cake and eat it too.

Oh, Jeb is running a commercial bragging that he got a stop light placed near a high school. Admittedly, the US political system focuses on casework, but one of the Big 4 governors thinks that is going to get him votes?

So let’s have a countdown

ArchPundit September 18, 2002 No Comments

So let’s have a countdown to the first moron who says that the environmentalists were crying wolf over ozone depletion now that the ozone hole is being replenished. The real story is the Montreal Protocol worked perfectly.

Even better, the double screw-up when they confuse global warming and ozone depletion will come from somewhere (other than Freepers who are just too easy).

The hard work is just

ArchPundit September 18, 2002 No Comments

The hard work is just beginning on welfare reform and Califano points out why. The easy cases have largely been solved barring large increases in unemployment. Keeping strict standards is fine, but one has to understand the population we are dealing with.

Steve Chapman is great. The

ArchPundit September 18, 2002 No Comments

Steve Chapman is great. The article above is good, but best is this joke:
” The USDA’s persistence brings to mind the joke about the civil servant found weeping at his desk in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “What’s wrong?” someone asked. “My Indian died,” he answered.”

At least Kass agrees with

ArchPundit September 18, 2002 No Comments

At least Kass agrees with me about Bob Greene. And kudos for the consistency. As much as I disagreed with him about Clinton and abortion, Kass is always consistent.