State of the Union and Rebuttal, Part 2

"By passing the No Child Left Behind Act, you have made the expectation of literacy the law of our country. We are providing more funding for our schools -- a 36 percent increase since 2001. We are requiring higher standards. We are regularly testing every child on the fundamentals. We are reporting results to parents, and making sure they have better options when schools are not performing. We are making progress toward excellence for every child in America.

But the status quo always has defenders. Some want to undermine the No Child Left Behind Act by weakening standards and accountability. Yet the results we require are really a matter of common sense: We expect third graders to read and do math at third grade level -- that’s not asking too much. Testing is the only way to identify and help students who are falling behind.

This nation will not go back to the days of simply shuffling children along from grade to grade without them learning the basics. I refuse to give up on any child -- and the No Child Left Behind Act is opening the door of opportunity to all of America's children. "
President George W. Bush, State of the Union, January 20, 2004

"Here's how No Child Left Behind and your tests work in the classrooms of Houston and Chicago. Millions of 8-year-olds are given lists of words and phrases. They are graded, like USDA beef: some prime, some OK, many failed.

Once the kids are stamped and sorted, the parents of the marked children ask for you to fill your tantalizing promise, to "make sure they have better options when schools are not performing."

But there is no "better option," is there, Mr. Bush? Where's the money for the better schools to take in the kids getting crushed in cash-poor districts? Where's the open door to the suburban campuses with the big green lawns for the dark kids with the test-score mark of Cain?

. . . Here in New York City, your educational Taliban, led by Republican Mayor Bloomberg, had issued an edict to test the third-graders. Winnow out the chaff and throw them back, exactly where they started, to repeat the same failed program another year. In other words, the core edict of No Child Left Behind is that failing children will be left behind another year. And another year and another year.

You know and I know that this is not an educational opportunity program -- because you offer no opportunities, no hope, no plan, no funding. Rather, it is the new Republican social Darwinism: Identify the nation's loser-class early on. Trap them, then train them cheap. The system will provide the new worker drones to clean the toilets at the Yale alumni club, to punch the McDonald's cash registers color-coded for illiterates, to pamper the winner-class on the higher floors of the new service economy order."
Greg Palast, "No (Rich) Child Left Behind"