December 18, 2008 4:05PM # At Least We’ll Get More of the Same… By [Andrew J. Coulson](https://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson) --- SHARE The latest issue of *The Economist* [praises president elect Obama’s pick of Arne Duncan ](http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12814718)to lead the department of education. In particular, it predicts that “Mr Duncan may restore the spirit of co-operation that helped pass NCLB in 2001.” But bi-partisanship is not intrinsically desirable. It is only good when it results in good policies. NCLB has not proven itself a good policy. There are four nationally representative sources of information on academic outcomes over the last 6 to 10 years: America’s own National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), and the international testing programs: PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS. [NAEP ](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8680)shows some gains since NCLB was passed, but they are, for the most part, smaller than those that occurred in the years immediately preceding the law. [TIMSS ](https://www.cato.org/2008/12/09/us-schools-spending-leaders-middling-performers/)shows gains in math over the past decade, but stagnation in science, and much of the math gain seems to have preceded NCLB — and we’re still just in the middle of the pack among the top 30 rich countries despite being the second highest spender among them. Both [PISA and PIRLS ](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8850)show stagnation or decline across subjects and grades. These lackluster results have come at an additional cost of perhaps $100 billion over our already world-leading per-pupil spending. I don’t understand why an “economist” would think more of this kind of bipartisanship desirable. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).