NYTimes -- G.O.P. Foresees Expansion of Party Themes on Education

Republicans, in control of both houses of Congress after this week's elections, say they do not anticipate major shifts in educational policy, or a review of the signature No Child Left Behind Act adopted last year while Democrats controlled the Senate.

But they do envision expanding on some of the Republican Party's themes included in the act, particularly an increased emphasis on tracking the success or failure of educational programs through standardized testing.

...The Education Department is struggling to reassure states concerned about the vast numbers of schools that are likely to fall short under the new law's formulas for measuring adequate yearly progress. It has stopped referring to these schools as failing schools, and is urging educators and the news media to distinguish between schools that might be lacking in a minor way, and those that have chronic problems. The law, however, makes no such distinction.

For James Guthrie, an education professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, the larger lesson from this week's election is that education may no longer be as big a priority for President Bush as it once was.

The issues the president highlighted in campaigning for Congressional Republicans mostly involved domestic security, war with Iraq and the economy. Education, Mr. Guthrie predicted, may become little more than a sideshow or bargaining chip in the new political constellation.

Education is clearly not a top priority anymore. Education was the ruse Rove used to get Bush respectable to surburban mothers.