Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken [146]
42—No Child Left Behind Standardized Test
Question 1: The Congressional Research Service estimates that 40 percent of the national average per pupil education cost (the target for federal support established by NCLB) is $2,827. Bush’s budget contained a $1 billion funding increase for Title 1, but NCLB called for a $5.65 billion funding increase.
Question 2: The numbers are based on Congressional Budget Office projections of cost per child, based on FY2000 program data and adjusted for inflation.
Question 3: Based on a National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future estimate of roughly $4,000 for funding the training of one teacher, adjusted for inflation according to Congressional Budget Office projections to $4,295, Bush’s budget request would fund approximately 316,000 teachers, or 92,000 fewer than were supported under NCLB.
MEET TEAMFRANKEN
The fourteen members of TeamFranken received no course credit for their work. While carrying full course loads at either the Kennedy School or the College, they did their research out of dedication to the truth and for a home-cooked meal provided by my wife Franni every Wednesday night at the Cambridge apartment we rented. We had a great time.
Me.
Owen Kane—Mid-career Kennedy School ’03. An actual adult and a great guy. Also, an attorney with fifteen years experience in private and public sectors. Owen actually worked with a Republican, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift, as her general counsel of legislative affairs. I held that against him so I made Owen listen to Rush Limbaugh.
Joan McRobbie—Mid-career Kennedy School ’03. An award-winning journalist. A mom/Bay Area feminist in the best way possible. Joan brought a maturity and sense of calm to an otherwise green and excitable group. Joan helped on taxes and found that all the voucher studies cited by Sean Hannity were either suspect or entirely discredited.
Andrew Barr—College ’05. Brilliant kid. Valedictorian of Boston Latin, the oldest public school in Boston. Andy became my personal assistant in Cambridge, and came to New York for the killer wrap-up of the book. You’ll remember him as my fellow conspirator at Bob Jones.
Ryan Friedrichs—Kennedy School ’03. University of Michigan ’99. Passionate Democrat. Michigan blue collar through and through. Ryan brought tremendous emotion to the Wellstone memorial and to his distaste for O’Reilly. He found the invaluable oral sex passage in Those Who Trespass. A fighter.
Ryan Cunningham—Kennedy School ’04. University of Texas Phi Beta Kappa. Taught poor kids as a Teach America Volunteer. Very funny guy. Wrote Kharap Jhuta’s first line: “My job in the factory is very hard.” Ryan also worked on “Who Created the Tone?”
Ben Mathis-Lilley—College ’03. Wry, brilliant. Ben was perhaps the least political of all TF members, and it was wonderful watching his amazed reaction to each fresh conservative lie. I’ll always cherish Ben’s smile when he found Ari Fleischer’s “There’s a new sheriff in town” quote.
Ric Arthur—Kennedy School ’03. ’93 Annapolis grad. Two tours in the Navy. Ric and I spent a couple hours on the phone with former Swift Boat commander Wade Sanders and together the three of us hashed out the story line for “Operation Chickenhawk.” Ric also was invaluable on other military matters.
Ben Wikler—College ’03. Ben took the term off and was with me through every step of the process. A brilliant, committed activist, Ben was cofounder and national coordinating committee member of the Student Global AIDS campaign, which has done incredibly effective work. Ben contributes to The Onion, source of the most consistently funny stuff anywhere. An amazing intellect and talent.
Karl Procaccini—College ’05. Karl took tremendous delight in ferreting out the oddest stuff, including figuring out some of Ann Coulter’s techniques for lying with footnotes. Among others, Karl discovered the “overloading