Disregarding the previous item, now that it’s come to light that the GOP’s idea of a growth model actually has nothing at all to do with school performance, President Bush has suddenly scheduled some education events around No Child Left Behind to shore up support with women. This morning he’s visiting the Department of Education, a school, and doing a press event.
Update: It didn’t work so well, hardly broke through even in the WaPo.* But, the speech the President gave is actually a pretty good primer on his views about education reform and it’s hard to disagree with all of it. He’s back, though, to pitching the Sadly Shrunken Teacher Incentive Fund but still with no explanation of why, if it’s such a priority for him, he allowed Congress to fund it at only 20 percent of his request… Human capital in education is an enormous issue and he’s throwing $100 million at it…
*Politically, for the Rs, isn’t the real problem with this scandal the nature of it? Not just that it’s appalling, but in particular a lot of parents are anxious about online chat rooms, IMing, and so forth. They feel a real loss of control and sense of risk there. This scandal is as squarely in that wheelhouse as possible: Creepy guy, emailing and IMing kids, without parents knowing. Going to take more than teacher pay to break through that.