Over at This Week in Education, Alexander Russo is making clear that he's no summer slacker. He has a very interesting post that springboards off the news that U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and her SLG's are now playing hardball with the State of California, threatening to withhold millions of dollars in federal Title I funding unless districts like Los Angeles start allowing public school choice for students trying to flee crappy schools.

Districts, including New York City, have complained they don't have enough non-crappy public schools to make these hopes and dreams a reality.

Russo notes that at this point, the only groups that seem to be focused on children in this issue are the (bizarre combination) Alliance for School Choice and the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights. He writes:

Whatever the specific motivation -- or the ultimate result -- how downright embarrassed the education and especially the civil rights community, as well as the Dems, should be that just two groups -- the Alliance and the Citizens' Commission -- have presented anything close to a steady drumbeat of interest in the NCLB choice issue.

Good point. For my part, I feel I owe Spellings an apology. In this post back in April, I pessimistically suggested that no one in the Bush administration had the anatomically-correct fortitude to get serious about NCLB's choice provisions by actually withholding
the cash from foot-dragging bureaucrats. What a pleasant surprise.

Edspresso's Ryan Boots has more on this here.