Now I'm Really Scared

I went to a lecture at a nearby college of some repute. The discussion focus centered on four public policy levers to bridge the deep academic divide between K-12 and higher education. The guest lecturer had two comments - the first of which scared me:

Governor Jeb Bush is a policy wonk with some very intelligent thinking about education. He's a lot like Clinton was when he was Governor of Arkansas.

Here's the second that I thought made a whole lot of sense - although it is arguable that NCLB is the right policy to insert:

I don't see how you can rationalize stopping a school improvement program at the 8th grade. This may have been fine for the 19th Century, but not the Twenty-first.