Opinion: Columnist George Will bashes NCLB

 No Child Left Behind, supposedly an antidote to the “soft bigotry of low expectations,” has instead spawned lowered standards. The law will eventually be reauthorized because doubling down on losing bets is what Washington does. But because NCLB contains incentives for perverse behavior, reauthorization should include legislation empowering states to ignore it. NCLB was passed in 2001 as an extension of the original mistake, President Lyndon Johnson’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the first large Washington intrusion into education K through 12.

This expansion of Washington’s role in the quintessential state and local responsibility was problematic, for three reasons. First, most new ideas are dubious, so federalization of policy increases the probability of continentwide mistakes. Second, education is susceptible to pedagogic fads and social engineering fantasies—schools of education incubate them—so it is prone to producing continental regrets. Third, America always is more likely to have a few wise state governments than a wise federal government. Read more of George Will’s opinion piece in The Cincinnati Post.