The Myth Of The Broken NCLB Promise

There's an interesting if not entirely accurate description on Slate.com of how the bipartisanship that marked the creation of NCLB fell apart right after the law was passed.

Bush took "a good Democratic idea (education reform), added his own wrinkle (annual tests), and charmed leading Democrats into writing most of the bill," according to former Clinton domestic policy guru Bruce Reed (The upper-class squeeze). "But once it became law, Bush couldn't take the heat from conservatives who oppose national support for education. He promptly broke his promise to provide the funds to make reform succeed and gave up on bipartisanship altogether."

Is that really what happened? Not really. To my recollection, it was liberals and the education establishment who first renounced NCLB, and Congressional Democrats who originated the idea of the "broken promise" on funding -- a myth that I first tried to dispel in Slate three years ago. As for Kennedy and Miller having been "charmed" into collaborating on NCLB, if that were true it seems they would, five years later in the shadow or Iraq and all the rest that's happened, have renounced the law or signaled its imminent demise.