Bush's Chicago Itinerary

By Margaret Lyons in News on Jan 7, 2008 5:00PM

President Bush is in town today to celebrate the anniversary of No Child Left Behind, hobnob with Mayor Daley to talk Olympics, and give a speech about the economy to the Union League Club. And the Sun-Times makes him feel welcome with a front-page smackdown of NCLB.

Since the No Child law passed, average state test scores for high schoolers haven't budged. In fact, reading scores for minority students and for poor students are lower than in 2003, a Sun-Times analysis found. There has been meaningful progress on the ACT since 2003, but white student gains outpaced gains made by black and Hispanic students.

Ted Kennedy, one of the lead authors of the act, has a smackdown all his own, too.

Bush is at Horace Greeley Elementary School this morning, a federal "blue ribbon" school where 83.3 percent of students meet or exceed state standards. Yes, there are lots of reasons Illinois test scores improved in the last few years...