all children left behind

From the NY Times :

Report Faults Bush Initiative on Education
Concluding a yearlong study on the effectiveness of President Bush's sweeping education law, No Child Left Behind, a bipartisan panel of lawmakers drawn from many states yesterday pronounced it a flawed, convoluted and unconstitutional education reform initiative that has usurped state and local control of public schools.

The report, based on hearings in six cities, praised the law's goal of ending the gap in scholastic achievement between white and minority students. But most of the 77- page report, which the Education Department rebutted yesterday, was devoted to a detailed inventory and discussion of its flaws.

It said the law's accountability system, which punishes schools whose students fail to improve steadily on standardized tests, undermined school improvement efforts already under way in many states and relied on the wrong indicators. The report said that the law's rules for educating disabled students conflict with another federal law, and that it presented bureaucratic requirements that failed to recognize the tapestry of educational challenges faced by teachers in the nation's 15,000 school districts.

"Under N.C.L.B., the federal government's role has become excessively intrusive in the day-to-day operations of public education," the National Conference of State Legislatures said in the report, which was written by a panel of 16 state legislators and 6 legislative staff members.

Several education experts said the panel had accurately captured the views of thousands of state lawmakers, and local educators. If that is so, the report suggests that the Bush administration could face continuing friction with states and school districts as the Department of Education seeks to carry out the law in coming months.

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Have ANY of bush's policies actually done anything positive for this country? Have any even done what they said they would do?! Its somewhat staggering that someone can be wrong that often! Doesn't statistical probability indicate that he should eventually be right about SOMETHING?!
Also, don't the repubs always say that they want to keep government OUT of our lives? I guess the exception is when it is a repub policy!