One of Senator John McCain's most attractive virtues is his willingness to stand on principle even in the face of adversity. He promoted comprehensive immigration reform even though his own party's base hated it. He continues to support the Iraq War even though the public wants the troops out. Now, with his strong, almost-no-caveats embrace of No Child Left Behind, he's got a twofer: he's found a policy position opposed by his party's base and the general public.
Such a position gives Senator Barack Obama all kinds of room to run. He can support the tenets of NCLB while criticizing its specifics, placate his teacher union base while offering reforms that paint him as a different kind of Democrat. And yesterday, in a major policy speech at the Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts (MESA), that's exactly what he did. (Full text here, Washington Post Online coverage here; AP coverage here.) Here's the beef:
I believe it's time to lead a new era of mutual responsibility in education, one where we all come together for the sake of our children's success. An era where each of us does our part to make that success a reality: parents and teachers, leaders in Washington and citizens all across America.This starts with fixing the broken promises of No Child Left Behind. Now, I believe that the goals of this law were the right ones. Making a promise to educate every child with an excellent teacher is right. Closing the achievement gap that exists in too many cities and rural areas is right. More accountability is right. Higher standards are right.
But I'll tell you what's wrong with No Child Left Behind. Forcing our teachers, our principals and our schools to accomplish all of this without the resources they need is wrong. Promising high-quality teachers in every classroom and then leaving the support and the pay for those teachers behind is wrong. Labeling a school and its students as failures one day and then throwing your hands up and walking away from them the next is wrong.
We must fix the failures of No Child Left Behind. We must provide the funding we were promised, give our states the resources they need and finally meet our commitment to special education. We also need to realize that we can meet high standards without forcing teachers and students to spend most of the year preparing for a single, high-stakes test. Recently, 87 percent of Colorado teachers said that testing was crowding out subjects like music and art. But we need to look no further than MESA to see that accountability does not need to come at the expense of a well-rounded education. It can help complete it - and it should.
And what was the McCain campaign's response? His spokesman said:
While in the U.S. Senate, Barack Obama has never spearheaded education reforms, which despite his lofty rhetoric, demonstrates his weak leadership on an issue that is critical to the economic strength of our country. It's no coincidence that a leading education magazine [Education Week] noted that Senator Obama has made no significant mark on education policy.
That's it? That's all you've got?
Conventional wisdom (true in this case, I believe) says that Republicans that don't talk about education don't win elections. Senator McCain is going to have to offer a clear vision of his own on the issue, and if it has any chance of energizing his base or the general public, it needs to start with an admission that NCLB is far from perfect. Then he can strike back at his opponent. If you think "mutual responsibility" and parental involvement are such good ideas, Mr. Obama, why won't you allow parents to choose a full range of options for their children, including excellent inner-city Catholic schools? In particular, why won't you let low-income Hispanic families make these choices? What exactly would you do, from Washington, to a school once you declare it a failure? And just how many "resources" are enough to fix our schools? $550 billion a year isn't enough?
Team McCain: Amateur hour is over. Get it together, or get ready for a sad November.
