BrianGarst.com

A Washington Post article features a story on how NCLB deals with a school of special needs children:

Stephen Knolls School suffered the ignominy of failure under federal law in 2006 and 2007 for low test scores. This year, the Kensington school finally made the grade in reading and math — only to be sanctioned for poor attendance.

The challenge in this case is not truancy. Stephen Knolls serves medically fragile children with severe physical and cognitive disabilities, such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida and Rett syndrome.

…

“We know that there are legitimate reasons for [students] to be home,” said Tina Shrewsbury, school coordinator. “They’re going to [medical] specialists. . . . They’re having lab tests done. They’re being hospitalized.”

The dispute offers “a classic case of how well-intentioned federal policy has gone awry,” said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at the University of California at Berkeley. “This district is earnestly trying to follow the spirit of the No Child law.” But that doesn’t give Stephen Knolls any help with a rating system controlled by the state and federal governments.

Conservatives routinely rail against the folly of relying only on good intentions in government policy.  There is no doubt that NCLB identified a flaw in the current educational system, a lack of accountability, and was a good faith effort to address that flaw.  The problem is that, in doing so, President Bush abandoned any pretense of conservative understanding of the limits of government solutions, not to mention any belief in state’s rights.  Thus it is easily understood why he was joined by Ted Kennedy in championing the bill.

NCLB and Stephen Knolls School exemplify the problem with government solutions: they are inflexible, one-size-fits-all programs largely incapable of adapting to local circumstances.  Our education system is in dire need of accountability if it is ever going to perform up to the standards we desire, but that accountability cannot by supplied by government.   The Republican party used to understand this when it elected Reagan on a platform that included the desired abolition of the Department of Education.

The only way to bring real accountability to our education system is to return power to the people who have the most at stake: parents and students.  End the government monopoly on education and the goals of NCLB would be moot.  Give people choice and see how quickly things improve.  That is the solution conservatives should support.