While the results of this Tuesday’s elections are for the most part in, the implications for public education are in many ways not yet clear. Nationally, the victories of Tea Party candidates have meant a loss of Democratic control of the House and a further push to the political right, but the consequences for public schools may be minimal. Regardless of party, public education has had no friends in high places for a long time – and the policies of Obama have been either indistinguishable or even more of an attack on our schools than we saw from George Bush.

Now that the elections are over, legislators may be willing to spend a little political capital to pass a new version of No Child Left Behind, but given that it wasn’t headed anywhere good to begin with – more privatization, simplistic assessments of teachers, a continued blind eye to the lack of