The Huffington Post has a new education blogger on board - Gerald Bracey. According to his announcement, Ariana asked him to step up so they could provide an Ed policy section. Here’s the link to Bracey’s blog. There’s a feed for all the Huffington Post bloggers, but I don’t see one for just the “education section” on the list.

Bracey’s first post is called Things Fall Apart: No Child Left Behind Self Destructs. He writes:

But as the law enters its fifth year, even its supporters can no longer ignore that the law is imploding. On November 30, Frederick Hess, Education Director for the American Enterprise Institute and Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation convened a conference, “Fixing Failing Schools: Are the Tools in the NCLB Toolkit Working?” I attended.

After the first four presentations, moderator Finn declared that instead of providing sweet cakes and coffee, “I should be handing out mood altering pharmaceuticals, those that deal with depression.” No later presentations offered anything to elevate Finn’s mood as one scholar after another delivered evidence on this failed provision or that failed provision and the law’s failure to accomplish its stated goal: to elevate the achievement of poor children and minorities.

Charged with summarizing the day, former assistant secretary of education for Bush I, Diane Ravitch, declared that the answer to the conference title’s question was clearly, “No!”

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