The good people of Nassau County, New York, thought they were electing a district attorney when they cast their vote for Kathleen Rice. Later today, they will learn otherwise.  As for the rest of the nation, they will learn that they got no vote in the matter, but still feel the great might that Rice will hold over their children’s future. You see, Kathleen Rice has positioned herself as our National Testing Czar.

Via Newsday :

The Nassau County district attorney and two of the nation’s largest standardized testing companies will announce Tuesday that they have agreed upon security reforms in college admissions tests, a spokesman said Monday.

Kathleen Rice will appear at a news conference at 10 a.m. with officials from ACT and College Board, which creates and runs the SATs, her spokesman John Byrne said.

When you want everyone to pay attention, you hold a press conference to announce a press conference, thus assuring that no one misses the critical event.  The opportunity grew out of the SAT testing scandal, first revealed by the Superintendent of the Great Neck North school district.  Rice seized the opportunity to prosecute both the test taker, the guy who was paid to slip in the door as if he was the student, but the students in whose name the test was taken.  They must be prosecuted, Rice announced. Whether she pounded the podium is unknown, but I prefer to think she did.

A number of sound reasons were offered to justify prosecution, turning more students into criminals. There were also solid reasons not to prosecute.  One reason to prosecute went unmentioned: it provided a fabulous opportunity for a local district attorney to get her name in the media as savior of the integrity of high school testing.  It also provided an opportunity to leap to the larger stage, a national stage, as the Nation’s Savior.

Later today, Kathleen Rice will announce changes in the security of the SAT and ACT tests to prevent cheating.  Who isn’t against cheating? Cheating is bad, we all agree.  Stopping cheating is good.

What connection Rice has with the handling of the SAT and ACT isn’t exactly clear. The College Board isn’t a party to the prosecutions, and Rice has no hold over them. Yet somehow, they have been persuaded to negotiate with her about how their security will be structured.  I have no clue what they will announce later today, and for all I know, it will be a perfectly reasonable plan.

But who is Kathleen Rice to dictate how a nationwide test be administered?

The parents of high school students in Palo Alto didn’t get a say in Rice’s assumption of authority to dictate the security measures that may be imposed on their children.  There are no doubt security experts, people trained in such matters and who have given substantial thought to not only the best methods, but the unintended consequences of the various alternatives. Kathleen Rice is not one of them.

It’s unclear what the new security methods will be, or what burdens they will place on parents and students. It’s unclear whether they will be effective, or just give the appearance of efficacy until some bright person figures out how to circumvent them.  Or maybe they will be exactly what is needed. Who knows?

What is known is that nobody elected Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice to be the nation’s hall monitor.  And yet it appears that her assumption of the authority will happen without so much as a raised eyebrow. 

Consider your own local prosecutor, and what national authority you would want on her plate. It’s pretty darn cool to bootstrap a minor local elected position into a national platform, with the klieg lights shining their warmth down and a round of appearances on all the morning talk shows.  What prosecutor wouldn’t enjoy a little extra attention?  Even though the job of Testing Czar has been taken, there is still plenty of opportunity to seize control of a nation.  All one needs to do is find the right opportunity and run with it.