No Child Left Behind . . .
. . . even if we have to drag him, fake her statistics or jam their futures down everyone’s throat. Which confirms the universal truth that figures don’t lie, but liars figure.
Ostensibly, everyone is in the education game for the benefit of children. But increasingly the players polarize, shrinking back to protect their turf, be they boards of education, state and federal education committees, layers upon layers of administrative staff, teachers’ unions, vendors of everything from school busses to backpacks and school meals and, finally . . . exhaustedly . . . bitterly and in extremes of frustration and despair . . . the parents of schoolchildren.
George Will says in his column---Anyone who thinks parents hunger for greater academic rigor should try to get parents to pay the price -- more dollars for more school days and, even less tolerated, decreased vacation time for little Tommy and Sue and their parents -- of increasing America's approximately 180-day school year, which is 40 to…