# 9: NCLB will result in public schools turning away much-needed federal money in order to avoid federal sanctions.
Grover Norquist, the neo-con kingpin for dismantling the federal government, must be toasting Maggie and Co. these days for ED's unrelenting efforts to turn public education into a series of corporate welfare projects, from tutoring to teacher preparation to the MacSchools that the Edison outfit (now rescued by the Florida teacher retirement fund), have waiting in the wings if the American public can be duped by the failure fakery that remains central to ED's propaganda campaign.
It was Norquist who famously qualified his agenda this way: I don't want to abolish government, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
(Thanks to The National Debate for providing the audio link.)
As the impossibility of meeting AYP becomes apparent to more and more schools, we are beginning to see now in California and other states the contingency plan of turning away federal monies in order to survive. Remember that the few schools of pure privilege (without Title I students) face no sanctions. What an irony we now face, with states and municipalities refusing Title 1 money in order remain public, when the original Title I under the original ESEA of 1965 was intended to strengthen the public schools and to end an apartheid system of education.
What is needed, of course, is exactly the opposite of this kind of desperate escape plan, which plays into the hands of Norquist and the corporate socialists now running the show in Washington. What is needed is a determined campaign to end this madness called education reform that promises, if unchecked, to leave behind millions more poor and disabled children labeled as failures because of a federal policy that has placed a poorly-disguised socioeconomic ideology in front of common human decency.
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