No Govt Monopoly Left Behind

A nice article by Antoinette Konz as the top article on the front page of this morning's C-J. Konz details the difficulties in teaching special ed and assessing its results-- and the not-too-surprising shortcomings of "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) in assessing success or failure properly.

Unfortunately, the article leaves me with two complaints-- one for the editor of the front page section and one for the C-J's editorial board.

First, the front page editor entitled the article "No Child Left Behind falls short for many". Actually, the article is about NCLB falling short for some-- or to be more precise, some of the students and faculty in special education. Beyond that, the article details an apparent consensus within the education and policy analysis community-- that NCLB has been helpful in raising academic standards and expectations. The problem seems to be that reaching the more appropriate standards has, ironically, been made more difficult by the regulations. So, according to the article, the NCLB is a mixed bag in this arena.

Second, although one should have limited hopes for NCLB-- as an unwieldy federal attempt to regulate local, government-run entities which often have significant monopoly power-- the C-J editorial board routinely defends the government monopolies that are at the heart of the matter. In particular, the C-J has demagogued those who wanted educational choice and flexibility for those in special education-- to have the money follow students and their parents' choice.

At the end of the day, the C-J editorialists represent one version of liberalism-- that has more faith in state monopolies than market competition and values a particular vision of society at the (considerable) expense of individuals. When the evidence might undermine their faith-- or when their vision is stymied by the very means they advocate-- they blame-shift and rationalize. My hope and prayer is that there will come a day (soon) when their blinders are lifted...