No Paranoia Left Behind: Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias are slugging it out – do conservatives support the 100% proficiency goal of No Child Left Behind as part of a secret scheme to deem every public school in America a failure? Kevin says yes, Matt says no, Kevin says maybe, Matt still says no…

Well. The vast right wing conspiracy is apparently back and better than ever (ouyay owknay erewhay otay eetmay, ightray?), but I don’t think we are quite this sly. My guess – Republicans are figuring that if NCLB is going to be amended to become “Some Children Left Behind”, we can defer that PR puzzle to President Obama. Of course, an obvious step would be to keep the 100% proficiency goal but extend the deadline from 2014 to, say, 2020.

Whoever succeeds Bush will no doubt have plenty of opportunities to identify inherited but unrealistic goals.