An Open Letter to Margaret Spellings and Congress:

“Human history,” said H. G. Wells, is “a race between education and catastrophe.” If we stay the course with No Child Left Behind, catastrophe is a sure bet. You’ll soon be deciding the fate of this well-meant but appallingly simplistic piece of legislation. Continued failure to answer the legitimate questions of those you expect to carry out your mandates will further erode trust in your leadership.

US military death count for Baghdad excluded bombs, mortar and rocket attacks – Africa & Middle East – International Herald Tribune:

BAGHDAD, Iraq The U.S. military did not count people killed by bombs, mortars, rockets or other mass attacks — including suicide bombings — when it reported a dramatic drop in the number of murders around Baghdad last month, the U.S. command said Monday.

The decision to include only victims of drive-by shootings and those killed by torture and execution, usually at the hands of death squads, allowed U.S. officials to argue that a security crackdown that began in the capital on Aug. 7 had more than halved the city’s murder rate.

But the types of slayings, including suicide bombings, that the U.S. excluded from the category of “murder” were not made explicit at the time. That led to considerable confusion after Iraqi Health Ministry figures showed that 1,536 people had died violently around Baghdad in August, nearly the same number as in July.

Let’s see, so when the federal government is actually responsible for developing and carrying out policies, flexibility in measurement standards are allowed. If the federal government is only mandating standards as in NCLB, then there is no room for exceptions.