This is good news:

In the fall of 1995, Dr. Reid Lyon, who directs research in the neuroscience of reading and learning disorders in children at the National Institutes of Health, got an unexpected call from first-year Texas governor George W. Bush. "Look," Bush said, getting right to the point. "I have lots of kids who are not reading well. What's the science on this that can guide us?" After that chat, Bush flew Lyon down to Texas several times to help redesign the state's early-childhood reading programs so that they incorporated the latest NIH findings. "We've had a great relationship ever since," Bush recently noted.

Since he took office, Bush's educational policy has been guided by science. Now the Federal government is requiring at least some evidence that the pedagogical techniques it funds actually work. No doubt John Kerry's  educational policy will have its basis not in science, but here. Sure, the Federal government has no business funding education at all. But if it's going to, I'd rather have Bush make the decisions than Kerry.