Entries for December 10, 2005

The Winter 2006 issue of the Hoover Institution's Education Next has several interesting articles on high schools. It is one of the features of our national life that in a country with so many islands of excellence our high schools stand out as a huge island of mediocrity. How can we change that?

Not by some big federal initiative, argues longtime education reformer Chester Finn. Money quote: "Considering all the impediments to wholesale high-school reform and the absence of true consensus as to the nature and urgency of the problem, I conclude that diversity and experimentation are a reasonable way to proceed in mid-decade, rather than pressing for elusive agreement about a single national strategy. That doesn't mean I'm complacent about today's high schools. They are not, in fact, getting us where we need to go as a country. But neither are they going to be turned around from Washington, which lacks the political will to make this problem its own."

"Democrats fear backlash at polls for antiwar remarks" is the headline over this Washington Post story. There's obviously some panic in Democratic ranks over DNC Chairman Howard Dean's statement that the war in Iraq was unwinnable (Dean has argued, unconvincingly, that his remarks were taken out of context), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's statement supporting immediate withdrawal and asserting that most House Democrats share her view struck many other Democrats as alarming. So they are scrambling to come up with some middle-ground position. Reporters Jim VandeHei and Shalaigh Murray describe an emerging compromise:

While the party is divided over the specifics of Iraq policy, most Democratic legislators are slowly coalescing around a political plan, according to lawmakers and party operatives. This would involve setting a broad time frame for drawing down U.S. troops, starting with National Guard and reserve units, internationalizing the reconstruction effort, and blaming Bush for misleading the country into a war without a victory plan.