Goodbye To The Little Red Schoolhouse

If you haven't been to Washington, DC in the last few years, you might not have seen this "landmark". Even if you have been, it isn't usually on the regular tour. Yet people always ask when traveling between the Washington Monument and the Capitol why this red facade is in front of the Department of Education.

I know, it looks like something from a bad state fair.

This has been the front of the building for several years now, placed there when No Child Left Behind legislation was passed in the first term of President George W. Bush.

Now, we can have a rational and serious policy discussion on the merits of the law. I, for one, can find both good and bad in the changes made. However, no matter which side you fall on the controversial education law, this attempt at message control has to make you laugh.

When it first went up many people assumed it was temporary. Lots of message "props" are created for just this reason. I was living in DC then and each time I drove past it I just knew it was coming down soon.

How wrong I was.

As the years passed the structure became a joke. Teachers across the country began to ridicule the "Little Red Schoolhouse". It came to stand for everything the opponents of the education reform policy distrusted in government.

Now, it has seen it's last day. President Obama's administration officials have announced it is coming down. Perhaps it can be reused. Surely there is a state fair going on somewhere...