Ten years ago this month, President Bush signed the largest federal education reform legislation in decades, No Child Left Behind.
NCLB had all the buzzwords of the "education reform" movement of the time: increased standards, accountability for teachers and schools. It tied funding to achievement in standardized tests. It made small attempts to create "school choice" along the edge of the public-school system. And it was bipartisan; led by a Republican president, along with the Senate's liberal lion, Ted Kennedy.
Far from creating a consensus about American education, NCLB was met with skepticism from all sides of the political spectrum.