Democrats Make Bush School Act an Election Issue

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — 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.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/us/politics/23child.html

BRILLIANT!

....he's brilliant all over the place.

that 'we' teachers have been complaining and fighting this 'law'? Must finally be sinking it---took too long, but hoping that this will be the beginning of the end of NCLB.

No Child Left Behind: The football version:

1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship by the year 2014. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.

2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.

3. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don't like football.

4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th., 8th and 11th games.

5. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals. If no child get ahead, then no child will be left behind.

May I steal it???

The Irascible Professor site and then posted a thread about it over here, which promptly sank into oblivion--perhaps because I forgot to bash a Democratic candidate so everyone would want to read the post.

Are you serious?

Of course I'm not serious, but that is the tactic will be used against her. Just like if you dont support the War, then why dont you support the troops? Or if you opposed the PATRIOT act, why aren't you a patriot?

Instead of actually REPRESENTING our children and insisting on revising or eliminating this law, (as many of our reps promised they would do in 2007), they are now using it as a platform issue for their election campaigns.

So kids all over America get to wait one more year while the politicians fight it out.

If they REALLY cared about our kids, they wouldn't have postponed reforming NCLB.