Aside from the Patriot Act, the most catastrophic piece of legislation signed by George W. Bush is the No Child Left Behind Act.
The U.S. ranks far below the realm of any respectable nation in education. Abolishing the Department of Education will help fix this.
However, No Child Left behind is the most evils culprit. It in effect prohibits elevation of merit and provides no incentive or reward for above-average academic performance by requiring public schools to cater to the least common denominator—the least performative and intelligent students.
It is in essence an extraordinarily communitarian policy that takes from the studious to give to poor performers.
Instead, because even the repeal of this legislation is likely to be largely ignored by teachers’ unions, new legislation must be enacted to force public schools to challenge students by meeting the best of them, and not merely the least of them, where they are.