No Child Left Behind, championed by President George W. Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, was enacted in 2002. It included a long list of mandates that states had to follow to receive federal funding. But it quickly became a lightning rod because of its heavy emphasis on testing. It was also criticized for setting unrealistic goals.

Last year, the House and Senate moved to pass a new federal framework that included far fewer requirements. But accountability advocates did manage to win a provision that they believe will force states to step in and improve poorly functioning schools. It mandates that states must intervene with schools which repeatedly fail to graduate two-thirds of students, fall in the bottom 5 percent of academic achievement or have chronic problems with low scores for ethnic groups.

U.S. Department of Education officials charged with drafting rules for this provision want states to adopt simple metrics based mostly on test scores that provide one number for each school, making it easier to assess academic performance.

California State Superintendent of Public Schools Tom Torlakson

But Gov. Jerry Brown, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson (pictured) and state Board of Education President Michael Kirst have for years disapproved of the single-score rating. This view — and the aggressive lobbying of the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers — led to the scrapping of the Academic Performance Index that had previously provided snapshot looks at school performance.

Instead, the state Board of Education earlier this month unanimously adopted a system that rates schools on several factors, including math and English test scores; graduation, suspension and absenteeism rates; and effectiveness of English-learner courses. Kirst and Torlakson wrote a letter to a U.S. Department of Education officials urging that California’s multi-metric standard be accepted.

State evaluation ripped as confusing, unhelpful

But the proposal has come under fire within California. While it was being finalized, the state evaluation system was blasted in a Los Angeles Times editorial as being confusing and unhelpful. The Legislature was also skeptical. At the behest of Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, the Assembly and Senate passed a bill with almost no dissent that had a similar variety of metrics for schools — but also a bottom-line, single score on academic performance, as the U.S. Department of Education wants.

Last weekend, Gov. Brown vetoed the bill — AB2548 — saying the standards developed by the state Board of Education were superior.

This sets up a confrontation with the Obama administration in the short term and with the administration of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump after Jan. 20, 2017.

Brown, Torlakson and Kirst may be hoping for a more sympathetic ear from Clinton. A high-profile education reformer earlier in her career, in recent years she has echoed teacher unions’ criticism of assigning so much importance to results of standardized tests.

But there was also some eye-rolling. How could a governor who will be out of office in January 2019 possibly impose binding conditions on future chief executives and Legislatures beyond those established in AB32 and other emission-focused legislation formally adopted by the Assembly and Senate?

Now it turns out that the Legislature’s top attorney — Legislative Counsel Diane Boyer-Vine — shares this skepticism. Last week, state Senate Minority Leader Jean Fuller, R-Bakersfield, released a letter by Boyer-Vine responding to her questions about whether Brown could change state law by fiat.

“We think the determination of a standard for the statewide (greenhouse gas) emissions limit is a fundamental policy decision that only the Legislature can make,” Boyer-Vine wrote. She noted that under state law, the Legislature couldn’t assign sole policy-making authority on the issue to the governor even if it wanted to.

The California Air Resources Board defended the legality of the governor’s order with a statement that didn’t address the specific legal points made by Boyer-Vine.

“While the 2020 limit is an important first step in measuring progress, climate change will not end in 2020 and AB32 explicitly states the intent to ‘maintain and continue reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases beyond 2020,’” a spokesman told the Sacramento Bee.

Echoes of D.C. fights — with one big difference

The emerging battle has crucial similarities to the fights over executive authority in Washington, where Republican lawmakers have backed lawsuits challenging President Obama’s orders on immigration, pollution and other issues. But one big difference is that the Sacramento scrum is over a policy area in which California’s legislative and executive branches are generally in sync: greenhouse gas reduction.

But an Associated Press story about Boyer-Vine’s opinion hinted at why Brown prefers a unilateral approach to either deferring to or working with the Legislature on a measure expanding upon AB32 a decade after its passage:

Overturning the executive order would be a blow to Brown’s effort to establish a legacy and a global identity as a crusader against climate change. …

While Democrats maintain overwhelming control of the Legislature, Brown would face difficulty winning legislative approval for his emissions targets. A group of moderate Democrats in the Assembly has sided with business interests against efforts by Brown and conservation groups to create stronger environmental protections.

“The Legislature should not advance the cap-and-trade program under this dark legal cloud,” said Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.

Rail authority board chairman Dan Richard described the change in plans as being driven by practicality: Having the first segment go from Kern County to San Jose instead of Fresno to Burbank allows the authority more certainty in being able to complete an initial segment. The old plan was for a difficult, partly mountainous 300-mile route costing $31 billion. The new plan is for a flat 250-mile route costing about $20 billion.

This allows for “a transition from planning and initial construction to being able to stand up and say we have federal funding, bond money, cap-and-trade revenue, and that those funds are sufficient for us to build, open and operate the first real high-speed rail leg in California,” Richard said at the news conference announcing the changes.

L.A.-area route risked mass political defections

But there is also evidence that the rail authority feared that if it continued with the original plan, it would face a political Waterloo. The state project had already lost the crucial support of some Los Angeles-area politicians and risked losing far more — starting with state Senate President Kevin de Leon and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon.

In 2014 and 2015, throughout the San Fernando Valley, grass-roots opposition to the state’s planned route built steadily. Some Latino activists said the bullet train’s effects would be so harsh on working-class minority communities that it should be a civil rights issue because the train and its 20-foot-high sound wall would bisect the San Fernando Valley in a way that would disrupt traffic, business patterns, schools, transit and everyday life.

At a May 2015 town-hall meeting, rail authority officials heard impassioned pleas to take their project elsewhere.

“Our community’s history has been riddled with displacement. My family has all its roots here. I want my grandchildren to grow up here, understanding how great a place it is. We like where we live,” testified San Fernando resident Genaro Ayala, according to a Los Angeles Times report.

But at that meeting, Richard downplayed the impacts to the crowd. Lou Correa, a veteran Democratic politician from Orange County appointed to the rail authority board in March 2015, said he detected “NIMBYism” in the complaints. That sparked a furious response from local residents, who said that rich communities used similar tactics to block projects they didn’t like, and that it was outrageous for anyone to suggest opposition was reflexive instead of driven by concern about impacts on their neighborhoods.

This public anger has translated into political support. As CalWatchdog reported last year, many public officials have been sharply critical of much or all of the project. The most prominent initial opponents included Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, and Rep. Judy Chu, D-El Monte, Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, who represents much of the affected part of the county, and San Fernando Mayor Pro Tem Sylvia Ballin and Councilman Jaime Soto. Now the list also includes elected leaders from Sylmar, Santa Clarita, Shadow Hills, Lakeview Terrace and other Valley communities. In December, Assemblywoman Patty Lopez, D-San Fernando, dropped her official support.

Did Rep. Schiff pressure Obama administration?

Schiff is the heavy hitter of the crowd because of his willingness to use his good relationship with the Obama administration to pressure the federal government, the state government’s de facto partner in the high-speed rail project because of $3 billion-plus provided in federal funds and because of the many federal regulatory approvals still needed.

A year ago, for example, he made headlines in the San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys when he ripped the National Parks Service for delays in completing promised studies involving the Angeles National Forest. That led the Save Angeles Forest for Everyone group, known as SAFE, to urge Schiff to pressure federal officials to seek changes in the bullet-train route, starting with plans for a mountain tunnel.

It’s not known what, if anything, the veteran Democrat did. But the California High Speed Rail Blog, home to the project’s most ardent defenders, expressed deep concern in January 2015 that Schiff’s opposition to the state’s plans “is going to make it very difficult for such a tunnel to be built. Other Democrats in the state’s congressional delegation will likely defer to Schiff on this, leaving the CHSRA with even fewer allies for a tunnel in the unlikely event they chose that alternative.”

However it came to pass, Schiff got his way, and, for now, his district is safe from disruption.

GOP lawmakers from California and their supporters are accused of offering solutions that abandon responsible policies that follow federal law in protecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin Bay-Delta Estuary’s ecosystem and its endangered species.

Democratic lawmakers from California and their supporters are accused of being too concerned about preserving the Delta at any cost, and in doing so showing indifference to the fate of poor people in the Central Valley who need agricultural jobs.

Both parties in Congress have been knocked for their inability to work together on a crucially important issue.

But recent media coverage has had a third focus of criticism: the Obama administration, which has been depicted as distracted and detached when it comes to helping California deal with its mass water shortage.

No ‘dynamic federal leadership’

Perhaps the toughest assessment yet came last week from the McClatchy newspaper chain’s Washington bureau. McClatchy’s Sacramento Bee and Fresno Bee papers gave it prominent play. Here’s a sampling:

With more than 70 percent of California now classified in a state of “exceptional” or “extreme” drought, Uncle Sam is floundering.

 

“We need leadership from the federal government,” pleaded Cannon Michael, a politically engaged farmer from Los Banos in California’s acutely dry San Joaquin Valley.

 

But so far, dynamic federal leadership has been lacking. Some of that is inevitable. Western water use poses too many inherent conflicts to unify all factions. Some people refuse to be led, and the drought is, at bottom, a state matter. Certain federal shortcomings, though, seem like self-inflicted wounds. …

 

The Obama administration lacks confirmed leaders in key positions. Four top water-related jobs at the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality have remained vacant for months, at least in part because of resistance from Senate Republicans. …

 

President Barack Obama has not used his bully pulpit to persistently drive a Western water agenda. He has visited California 28 times during his presidency, but his lone trip to the state’s San Joaquin Valley, ground zero for the drought, occurred 18 months ago.

 

“I think the Obama administration is missing a golden opportunity to provide leadership,” Dan Beard, a Democrat and former Bureau of Reclamation commissioner, said in an interview. “So far, we’ve had nothing but radio silence from them on the drought.”

Congress setting a bad precedent?

But the White House rejects the narrative that it has done little. And CQ Weekly’s most recent analysis of Washington’s response to the drought depicted the most consequential federal failure in the drought response to lie with Congress. It noted the Obama administration had ordered $110 million in emergency drought relief measures to help Western states with most going to California. CQ Weekly said the inability of Congress to respond was particularly ominous for the future of federal environmental policies:

For the most part, the debate is not bogged down by partisanship — in fact, some Democrats are sounding like Republicans on select issues. Members of both parties want to help quench California’s thirst by directing more pumping from two massive government water projects and boosting water storage for times of need.

 

But divisions over states’ rights, the environment and the role of agriculture have left many in Washington at odds, and attempts to tackle the problem in previous years have foundered. Still, how Congress deals with drought in California could set a standard for policy reforms across the United States, as droughts affect more regions and science suggests such environmental disruptions could become increasingly common as the Earth’s climate warms.

The CQ Weekly piece praised Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is cited by virtually all Washington reporters who write about the federal response to California’s drought as being the adult in the room. Her reputation for centrism has often been boosted by her environmental moderation.

But after more than nine months of stop-and-start negotiations, Feinstein still hasn’t hit on a deal that both House Republicans and a majority of the Senate will accept.

Here’s the Bakersfield Californian’s account:

Brown launched a no-nonsense defense of hydraulic fracturing on “Meet the Press” Sunday, dismissing host Chuck Todd’s concerns that the practice uses too much water and could be dangerous. Brown noted California oil companies have been fracking for decades, safely, and that the practice does not use excessive amounts of water. He also reminded Todd that California imports 70 percent of its annual oil consumption, and banning it would hardly make a dent in consumption but force the state to import yet more oil on rail cars.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, in sharp contrast, has accepted the contention of greens that fracking is a grave environmental threat. That California’s governor parts with Cuomo and sides with energy companies led liberal bloggers Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine to vent on their Calbuzz blog. This is from an item entitled, “Say It Isn’t So: Is Jerry Brown Really A Fracking Whore?”

On the one hand, he calls for – and even leads – a “crusade to protect our climate”; on the other he allows oil companies to engage in a practice that science and common sense insist is destructive, wasteful and unsafe to the environment and to Californians.

So, more in sadness than in anger, we must ask: Why is Brown acting a fracking whore?

Quid Pro Quo? Oh No. Surely, it can’t be that Occidental Petroleum gave $500,000 in 2012 to help Brown pass his crucial Proposition 30, which raised taxes on wealthy Californians and increased spending on public education. That would seem oh too quid quo pro for this political Jeremiah who self-righteously thunders that climate change denial “borders on the immoral.”

And yet, whenever he is challenged on his approval of fracking – he called it a “fabulous economic opportunity” in May 2013 – Brown slips the punch by citing all the other good stuff he’s set in motion to combat climate change.

Governor blasted for ‘lack of integrity’

On Friday, a Huffington Post writer — Paul Y. Song, a California physician who once helped advise the Brown administration — weighed in with a post headlined,”Governor Brown, We Urge You to Do What Is Right for Our Water and Our Environment!”

The Governor stated on Meet the Press last Sunday that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the drought is no reason to ban fracking.

Worse, while Gov. Brown called out Senator Mitch McConnell for advocating on behalf of coal development amid concerns about climate change and drought, Brown refuses to stand up to fossil fuel development in California in the face of irrefutable evidence that fracking wastes California’s water. In so doing, Governor Brown sells out the needs of the people of California in order to serve the greed of the oil industry.

The consequences of Gov. Brown’s failure to halt fracking and protect California’s fragile water supply does not just represent a lack of political integrity, but bears dire consequences for California’s future.

Neither the Calbuzz or Huffington Post pieces noted that President Barack Obama and his administration have a long record of arguing that fracking is safe and welcoming its success in triggering the brown energy boom.

The administration is also in the process of adopting rules to govern fracking on leased federal lands.

In a January interview with KQED, Interior Secretary Sally Jewell specifically knocked California fracking critics as misinformed.

The worst two examples of this conscious decision to leave out perhaps the strongest argument that pro-fracking forces can offer were in the Sacramento Bee and the L.A. Times.

In 2013, the Bee’s Pulizer-winning environmental reporter, Tom Knudson, wrote a voluminous, harshly critical look at fracking and California. He never mentioned that the Obama administration believes it to be just like another heavy industry that can be made safe enough with proper regulation.

Also in 2013, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell held a news conference announcing rules for fracking on federal land. The New York Times noted that Jewell’s remarks included pointed criticism of those who depicted fracking as unsafe. The Los Angeles Times covered the same press conference. Rather incredibly, it ignored Jewell’s remarks and instead quoted an oil industry figure as saying fracking was safe.

Cabinet member hits fracking ‘misinformation’

Now Jewell may have made it close to impossible for the California media to continue ignoring the Obama administration’s view by weighing in with KQED on what she sees as the poor logic behind local fracking bans.

President Obama’s chief custodian of federal lands says local and regional bans on fracking are taking regulation of oil and gas recovery in the wrong direction.

“I would say that is the wrong way to go,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell told KQED in an exclusive interview. “I think it’s going to be very difficult for industry to figure out what the rules are if different counties have different rules.”

In November, two California counties added themselves to a growing list of local bans on hydraulic fracturing. Voters approved measures in San Benito and Mendocino Counties by wide margins.

“There are a lot of fears out there in the general public and that manifests itself with local laws or regional laws,” Jewell said.

The recent move by New York to extend a statewide ban does not sit especially well with Jewell, who, as a former petroleum engineer, has hands-on experience with fracking.

“There is a lot of misinformation about fracking,” Jewell said. “I think that localized efforts or statewide efforts in many cases don’t understand the science behind it and I think there needs to be more science.”

Will the Bee, the Times and other California newspapers ignore this latest affirmation of the Obama administration’s view that fracking is not the devil?

I don’t see how they can — even though it will remind people how long they’ve covered up the views of Jewell, Obama and the administration in general.

But that coverage has mostly been on human interest angles relating to the kids coming from Central America and on the protests in Murrieta. I don’t think the mainstream media have done a good job of covering the political upshot of this mess. That upshot: The border debacle is sabotaging any chance for a bipartisan agreement on immigration reform — the sort of deal that many people in the GOP say is key to the party ever broadening its narrow base of voters.

Tom McClintock, the Northern California Republican congressman, has long been a foe of illegal immigration. His arguments are a preview of the powerful fire that is going to be used from here on out — not the usual stuff about how illegal immigrants are bad for the country but about how the federal government simply can’t be trusted on any immigration issue at all. This is from a speech he gave on the House floor:

The fact is, our southern border IS wide open; it is practically undefended and everybody knows it.  The many thousands streaming across it know that if they break our laws and enter the country illegally, they will be rewarded with free food, clothing, housing, medical care, transportation, legal representation and relocation, all at the expense of struggling American families.  Ninety five percent of them believe they’ll get “permisso” to stay –- and at the moment, they’re right.

Until we fundamentally change that reality, the mass incursion of our borders will continue and our nation’s sovereignty will slowly fade away. …

‘There is no reason to believe future laws will be enforced’

More from Tom:

This administration has actively encouraged this crisis with its promises of amnesty, and it now needs another $4 billion to feed, clothe and house this new surge.  Conspicuously lacking from the President’s proposal is any serious effort at enforcement or deportation.

The advocates of illegal immigration tell us we need comprehensive immigration reform, but what they really mean is extending some form of amnesty to those now illegally in our country.  Yet it is precisely these promises of amnesty that are causing and encouraging the mass migration we now are seeing. …

If we are not willing to enforce our current laws, there is no reason to believe that any future laws will be enforced.

This is a strong argument to make not to anti-immigration true believers but to those who are wavering on the issue — especially GOP moderates and Democrats in some border states.

Whether you believe, as McClintock does, that this surge was intentionally encouraged by the Obama administration, or is just more Obama incompetence, the end result isn’t good for anyone who hopes for a cease-fire in the immigration wars. I don’t think there’s a chance Congress enacts comprehensive immigration reform in the foreseeable future — and by that I mean at least five years.

I have heard that some journos think my criticism is unfair and/or that I am a loopy ideologue. My response: However I feel (or however you feel) about fracking, isn’t it an obligation for California newspapers to relate how the, yunno, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT feels about its safety?

Of course it is.

This weekend, I revved up Nexis to see it the media blackout continues. I searched for stories that mentioned “California” and “fracking” from June 14, 2013, to June 14, 2014:

Times, Bee and Chronicle fracking coverage

I found 132 stories in the Los Angeles Times.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

One — a June 21, 2013 op-ed by Rock Zierman, CEO of the California Independent Petroleum Assn.

I found 124 stories in the Sacramento Bee.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

One — a March 30, 2014, op-ed by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the Western States Petroleum Association.

The Bee ran a piece from McClatchy’s D.C. bureau in late November 2013 that didn’t even raise the question of fracking’s safety; it just pointed out how widely used it was and how it was transforming the economy of several states.

So I guess that one counts, giving the Bee two stories that give the Obama perspective on fracking safety.

I found 61 stories in the San Francisco Chronicle.

How many mentioned the Obama administration considered fracking safe?

Two, by staff reporter David R. Baker. Another Baker piece describes Obama as a fracking supporter.

So that gives the Chronicle three.

So there were 317 stories mentioning “California” and “fracking” for the past year, and only six mentioned that the Obama administration considers if safe — and two of those were op-eds from oil trade association executives and one was a wire story.

So only Baker’s three stories amount to staff-produced journalism on California and fracking from the state’s three most influential newspapers that noted the profoundly important fact that the greenest administration in U.S. history sides with those who say fracking is safe.

Draw your own conclusions. Sure looks like groupthink to me.

Green, please-the-Sierra-Club groupthink.

“Many drivers may have confused the gas and brake pedals a problem that may account for ‘the vast majority’ of the unintended acceleration incidents the agency investigated, NHTSA deputy administrator Ron Medford said at Tuesday’s NHTSA press briefing.

“‘What mostly happened was pedal misapplication where the driver stepped on the gas instead of the brake or in addition to the brake,’ Medford said.”

What quickly pointed to the likelihood that there was no real scandal? As I’ve noted before, here are the ages of the drivers involved in the incidents that led to major media coverage: 60, 61, 63, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89.

Recent events have shown what hooey this is. It’s not just the crown jewels of the UC system — the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses — that continue to thrive. It’s also the lesser-hyped schools:

The Orange County Register notes an honor for UC Irvine.

“As the University of California, Irvine approaches the milestone of its 50th year of operation in 2015, the campus has been honored again by Times Higher Education magazine as the top-rated university in the United States for schools under 50 years old.”

To the south, UC San Diego continues to stake out a global reputation as a leader in biotech and the increasing integration of health care and nanotechnology.

It’s also just an outstanding all-around university. Overall, the school is ranked the 39th-best in the nation in the latest U.S. News and World report rankings.

But in its core specialty — life sciences — UC San Diego is ranked seventh-best in the world. This ranking is only likely to rise as the La Jolla area builds on its reputation as a global biotech-nanotech innovation hub.

Finally, out in the Inland Empire, there is UC Riverside, a campus that rarely gets much love from anyone.

Until now.

As the Sacramento Bee reported this week, in a Time magazine analysis based on Obama administration standards unveiled last year, the Riverside campus gives students the best value for their tuition based on “metrics such as graduation rate, tuition costs and percentage of students who receive Pell Grants, the federal low-income scholarship, to determine which schools offer the best value.”

The Time list puts UCSD second, UC Irvine fourth and UC Davis sixth.

All that budget misery seems to agree with the UC system.

Or rather, all that alleged budget misery seems to agree with the UC system.