Cart, Then Horse. Right?

Over at the Center for American Progress, Robin Chait has a piece that sounds sort of familiar if you have been alive these past few years. It has to do with a surge, and how said surge is working. Caveats? Sure there are caveats, but aren't caveats part of a surge? Let's look at a bit of the article:

The No Child Left Behind Act—the latest reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965—passed in 2001 with bipartisan agreement over two things: the need for the education reforms laid out in law [cart], and the need for adequate resources to support the major reforms that it was asking states and districts to undertake [horse].

The first goal was met [cart], but seven years later, the second still has not [horse].

They made a law, then simply neglected to give the law any means to work. Why would anyone charged with making laws make a law that could not possibly do anything? Hmmmm. Could it be that the law was not supposed to work? Maybe the law was a setup for failure, and now the LAW can take over what used to be public and make it private. Nah, that sounds almost conspiratorial!

Look, I don't want to sound like I think everything is dandy in our schools--it's not dandy. But the lack of dandiness is not because we fail to meet standards. Our system is experiencing the same downward trend as our society. Look at who we elect to high offices! Look at what we drive! Look at what we find entertaining! Schools and teachers are fighting society, and the degraded, frightened, fiscally challenged society is blaming teachers; to blame themselves would be too reflective, and we don't do reflection.

I am sick to death of those in power making decisions based on refuted, convoluted, confusing, and vapid studies. Hell, even the studies have shown that what studies show should be taken with lots of salt (Lot--Salt? get it?).