Wah, Wah, Good One

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in today's Washington Post:

for people who say, 'Wah, wah, we can't have spelling bees because we have to focus on math and reading' -- let's measure the spelling"

It's an arguable position on an issue of central importance to the coming reauthorization of NCLB. A lot of NCLB criticisms boil down to the same basic complaint: because the law is designed to increase focus on the things that federal policymakers believe are most important--reading and math, defined proficiency levels, the performance of traditionally disadvantaged students--it inevitably decreases the focus on every other thing, like other academic subjects, performance levels, and student groups.

While this is a real concern, most critics don't like to grapple with one obvious response--let's test those things too--since they tend to also be unhappy about the current amount of testing, or testing generally. Too much testing is obviously problematic, but you also can't hold schools accountable for things without objective information about them. It's a tremendously tricky problem.

That said, it's hard not to like a member of the Cabinet--particularly in this administration--who's willing to go on the record and talk like a real person.