Toby has an insightful post ... Criticism, But I'm Glad He Dodged Those Shoes: Thoughts on the Bush Presidency

I think a lot of criticism for his failure with Katrina is misguided. I hold the same about Blanco and Nagin. Despite our best efforts to 20/20 this whole thing, the government treated it like every other hurricane. But don't let that make you think that anyone else treated it otherwise. I will never forget the morning of the storm watching media broadcasting from New Orleans and they were pretty content to say "things look OK" ... Of course, with Gustav they seemed like they wanted Katrina to happen again so bad they would report water flowing through canals as a major catastrophe. The lesson there? Experience is the best teacher ....

Of course, after the the storm, the mistakes piled up. That said, I don't fault Bush for what he didn't do before Katrina any more than I fault the press for not noticing that a record surge was heading into Mobile Bay before landfall. Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel noticed because he was in the middle of it. But your average hurricane ignorant press person doesn't know what all that means. Anyone who has studied the history of hurricanes in the area knew that would mean hundreds of deaths along the Mississippi coast. Weather history is a HUGE gap in education, especially along the coast. My generation doesn't remember Camille or Betsy or Audrey yet widespread knowledge of those events may have saved many lives.

The shocker for me, and for all of us, was the failure of the levees and quite frankly it was unrealistic to expect people to prepare for that to happen.

Americans have a really bad habit of wanting to blame someone that has money. Civil judgments that involve payouts cannot happen otherwise. We have been trained in our culture to think we have that kind of control. 9/11 -- somebody is at fault. Katrina -- somebody is at fault. It might just be that we have a pride problem and its hard to really admit that some things are outside of even the control of our supposed "best and brightest". In that light, I think it is important to realize that if Bobby Jindal and Barrack Obama had been running the show in Louisiana and Washington respectively, the outcome is unlikely to have been all that different. Events like this are political career killers and for Jindal supporters, they had better thank God that he lost the election to Blanco. His career would have ended in her shoes ... just like hers did.

As for Gustav ... experience is the best teacher. Jindal had that benefit. Blanco did not.

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One more thing .. no criticism of Bush is complete without reference to his complicity with the No Child Left Behind act. Without significant reform, or complete reversal, the death of public education is upon us.

I am interested to see how an Obama presidency treats a faster exodus of students from the public school system. I see it every year. Our homeschooling group nearly DOUBLED this last year and the vast majority are leaving because their kids are being ignored in the public school system. This exodus will increase and the public school test scores will fall.

It is on this note that we will find out how serious Obama was in Audacity of Hope when he indicated belief in a right to homeschool and even supported the principle of subsidiarity. Homeschooling, sooner or later, will become an issue. The way the system is set up now local schools cannot afford to have their best and brightest continue to be homechooled or go to private schools. Now they need the test scores ... Obviously the most pragmatic approach is to get those kids back in the schools where their test scores are counted (or do like they do in BR and count the magnet scores at the schools they WOULD be going to if not magnet) ....

What gives? Liberty, the integrity of teachers or NCLB?