or maybe just a problem again . . .

i am intrigued by recent moves by CONservatives to bail on No Child Left Behind.

in a neutral posting "Ex-Bush aides come out against NCLB," PBD today links to a WAPO article "Ex Aids Break with Bush on No Child." The article tells us:

"Five years after they helped craft and implement the initiative, senior administration officials from Bush's first term are speaking out against the law with increasing boldness. The shift, combined with mounting criticism from both the political right and left in Congress, is causing supporters of the law to worry that it might not win renewal this year."

the article describes the dissatisfaction since March of these CONservative republicans who have, apparently, joined the Democratic ranks of NCLB dissenters. curious about this putative parlay between CONs and Dems, i visited the Heritage Foundation, anticipating that this organization "committed to building an America where freedom, opportunity, prosperity and civil society flourish" would have some interesting and relevant things to say about this policy predicament.

sure enough i found the following quote from a January 8, 2007 speech before the Heritage Foundation by two Rebublican senators, the "Honorable John Cornyn and the Honorable Jim DeMint":

“No Child Left Behind started with some good ideas, but what Congress didn't mess up, the bureaucracy has messed up,” said DeMint, who voted against the law while serving in the House in 2001. “There is so much absurdity now within No Child Left Behind that it's going to be difficult to tweak it and fix it. We need to look at a way to allow states to get out of it in a way that would let them do it responsibly.”

clearly this has been brewing for some time. My view: CONservatives, aware that the end of the Republican Republik is coming, and that their dream of an educational "choice" smorgasboard and an open bar of federally-funded privatization funds has been dashed in a post-Operation-Iraqi-Freedom world, are retrenching and seeking to attenuate federal control over state mechanisms of potential taxation and income redistribution.

states rights redux?