Education: Failing Marks.(efforts to improve education policy are faltering)(Brief Article)

'The president has made bipartisan education reform the cornerstone of his administration." So reads one of the talking points the White House released at the end of its first 100 days. As the education bill heads through committee markup toward the floor of Congress, we are beginning to see what comes of making a fetish of bipartisanship: a Democratic bill.

President Bush's education proposal was at best a mixed bag. He promised to increase federal spending, even though there is not much evidence that the money already spent has done anything to improve education. He wanted, in addition, to increase the federal role in education by creating a national "accountability system" of tests. On the other hand, Bush had some good ideas: consolidating education programs, giving states more flexibility in spending federal grant money, and taking some tiny steps toward school choice. For the sake of these policies, many conservatives were willing to swallow their objections.

One by one, the conservative components of the bill are quietly dying. The first to go was school choice, which administration officials made clear would not ...