Democrats want to leave the kids behind

NY Times:

Teachers cheered Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton when she stepped before them last month at an elementary school in Waterloo, Iowa, and said she would “end” the No Child Left Behind Act because it was “just not working.”

Mrs. Clinton is not the only presidential candidate who has found attacking the act, President Bush’s signature education law, to be a crowd pleaser — all the Democrats have taken pokes. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico has said he wants to “scrap” the law. Senator Barack Obama has called for a “fundamental” overhaul. And John Edwards criticizes the law as emphasizing testing over teaching. “You don’t make a hog fatter by weighing it,” he said recently while campaigning in Iowa.

This was to be the year that Congress renewed the law that has reshaped the nation’s educational landscape by requiring public schools to bring every child to reading and math proficiency by 2014. But defections from both the right and the left killed the effort.

Now, as lawmakers say they will try again, the unceasing criticism of the law by Democratic presidential contenders and the teachers’ unions that are important to them promises to make the effort even more treacherous next year.

“No Child Left Behind may be the most negative brand in America,” said Representative George Miller of California, the Democratic chairman of the House education committee.

“And there’s no question about it,” Mr. Miller added. “It doesn’t help to have people putting themselves forward as leaders of the party expressing the same disenchantment they hear from the public, saying ‘Just scrap it.’ Congressmen read the morning papers just like everybody else.”

Democrats had long dominated the issue of education until Mr. Bush seized it in his first presidential campaign, making frequent stops at schools to condemn the “soft bigotry of low expectations” for minority children and to pledge that schools in poor areas would improve test results or face federal sanctions. The No Child law passed in his first year of office with the support of a strong centrist coalition.

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If the NEA is against it, you know it can't be that bad. Test scores have actually risen and those for disadvantage groups have risen the most. Teachers' groups oppose the bill because they do not like to be held accountable for their efforts. Democrats not only suck up to the NEA but they actually like keeping constituency groups dependent instead of independent. It would be pretty scary for them if minority students were successful because of a Republican program. They will do what ever they can to discredit the effort and keep minorities on their plantation.