Did anyone notice that the NDN has relegated the electronic Education column to a difficult-to-find location? Katherine Lewis no longer shares the front page with weekly veterans' puffs and the local crime and accident scenes. 50's for no work (or missed work) is a very bad idea on the CCPS's slippery slide down the slope into the funnel of failure. The FCAT is bad and so is performance pay for teachers, principals and districts. Assessment out of the hands of teachers and in the hands of politicians and Colonel Thompson team members is bad. Mr. Bush and all his supporters, including the pro-test authorities in the CCPS, have been wrong about this for seven years running. The sensitivity toward the nay-sayers who denigrate CCPS no-matter-what is also misplaced. All this tyrannical hoopla has done is make failure look like success. Did you notice our failure in Iraq is now proclaimed Victory? "Accountability" and "No Child Left Behind" are catchy phrases and have the humanitarian spin going for them, but they are straw men set up to deceive us all--like so many other things promulgated by the weapons of mass deception. Giving and receiving a good education is no joke. It's a lot of hard work, and it doesn't happen on TV nor in award ceremonies nor on standardized tests. It's usually a secret to everyone except to those giving and receiving. It does not happen by administrative proclamation. Notice how many good teachers are jumping ship. Katherine Lewis should visit the issue.