On a day when millions of American children returned to school, the news that a child had been left behind came at a most inopportune moment for the president, who has repeatedly vowed that his educational policy would have a zero-tolerance policy toward the leaving behind of children.
Zack Steidel, the Toledo boy who was left behind, seemed to be taking his newsworthy status in stride today.
“I didn’t want to go to school anyway,” said Steidel. “This way I can just stay at home and play Xbox, which totally rocks.”
White House spokesman Tony Snow tried to downplay the importance of Steidel having been left behind.
“At this point it is way too early to say that Zack being left behind means that ‘No Child Left Behind’ does not work,” Snow said. “He may have just missed the school bus.”
But education expert Davis Logsdon says that “No Child Left Behind,” which requires that students pass standardized tests in order to advance to the next grade, may be flawed at its core: “If that law had been around when President Bush was in school, he would still be in seventh grade.”
Elsewhere, Medicare chief Mark McClellan resigned today, saying that he wanted to devote the rest of his life to trying to understand the new Medicare rules.
