NCLB Reauthorization

Those are the scariest words in the English language to me these days.

If the Obama blueprint - or anything even close to it - becomes law, I think we will all talk nostalgically about the good old days when the Bush law was in place.

Because between the promotion of charters over traditional schools, the push for merit pay, teacher evaluations based upon test scores, new tests added to every grade in every subject, the dismantling of Title 1 into a yearly Race to the Top boondoggle for the districts most "reform-minded" and all the other jive Obama and Duncan want in place, the Obama law will make the Bush law look like free schooling.

Obama will spend a lot of time on this issue during the State of the Union address.

He plans on getting this passed and signed into law before 2012.

We shouldn't underestimate him.

He has gotten a lot of damaging things through already - from the corporate health care reform law that mandates 31 million new customers and pays for it on the backs of people with employer-provided health care plans to the Bush tax cut extension that raised taes on families making less than $40,000 to the cutting of millions in food stamps so that money could be used in Race to the Top to brand teachers and schools failures, Obama has done a lot of horrible things to people.

But if he gets his NCLB Jr. law, you can effectively write off the public school system across the country.

Test prep 24/7, high stakes tests in every subject four times a year, annual school closings and teacher firings - all the crap we see in NYC, only spread across the nation.

Start calling your reps in Washington now.

It's not too early to get ahead of this.

Rest assured, the AFT will be useless in this fight, but you should call them too.

Say no to NCLB Jr.