Steve Chapman diagnoses what's wrong with the Obama administration's education policy in this Monday's Chicago Tribune:

I can't pinpoint the moment when the Obama administration went wrong on the subject of education. But I can pinpoint the moment when it demonstrated that it can't be taken seriously.

It happened on Monday, March 15, when Education Secretary Arne Duncan was expounding to reporters about revising the No Child Left Behind law. The new policy, he asserted, "is going to revolutionize education in our country."

No, it's not. We have been at the task of education for a long time, and one thing we know is that you cannot revolutionize it. The American system of schooling is vast, complicated, self-protective, slow to change and even slower to improve.

And, I would add, fairly straightforward. Yes, certain subjects are complicated. But the task of educating citizens is as old as Aristotle.