Now that last school year's test scores are coming out, hopefully we'll see more of these articles: Bush's pet education bill is in serious trouble.

Here's a snippet: In Chicago last year, less than a third of the lowest-performing schools actually gave parents a transfer option. Roughly three out of four of the city's better-performing schools were exempted from having to accept transfers. Only 10 percent of the eligible students in Chicago even requested a transfer, and only half of those were approved. This year, Chicago has 365 failing schools, but only 38 out of roughly 240 better-performing schools—just over 15 percent—are being required to take in transfers. That's not much of a choice.

Here is something we all said months ago: What's more, the law unintentionally creates a situation in which NCLB is pretty much all bad news, all the time. Parents who thought their children's schools were doing fine are told the schools are lagging. Parents who were supposed to get the chance to transfer their children to a better school find out that there's nowhere to go, or decide they'd rather keep their kids in a failing neighborhood school than ship them across town. Parents at schools that are required to take in transfer students worry about the impact of the transfers on the school. The press has frequently taken side with the teachers, progressive reformers, and education officials who generally dislike the law. So far, at least, it's hard to find a winner.