Now you know the thesis of this Education Week commentary by USA Today editorial page writer Richard Whitmire; here are the key paragraphs:
I attended a press briefing not long ago by former Arizona schools chief Lisa Graham Keegan, McCain's top education adviser. Although the McCain campaign talks strong on school accountability, she had nothing good to say about the NCLB law. All children proficient by 2014? Let's stop pretending. The federal government sanctioning state schools? Not our way of doing business.Many conservatives have long disliked the law's federal intrusions. McCain is not going to stand in their way. It's not his issue. Under a President McCain, it would only be a matter of time before NCLB got renamed and pushed back to the states.
A few weeks ago, I listened to an Obama education adviser, Mike Johnston, brief the press. Obama has "no intention" of backing off tested accountability on math and reading, said Johnston. While a President Obama might rename the law and offer some additional measurements of school performance, odds favor his disappointing the teachers' unions.
The "press briefings" to which Whitmire refers were held at Fordham as part of our "reporter roundtable" series. I had a similar reaction when I listened to Keegan and when I listened to Johnston. And in a way, this all makes sense. No Child Left Behind's accountability provisions might be seen as "conservative," but its expansion of the federal role in education is indisputably liberal. That's why George W. Bush and Ted Kennedy were able to come together around the law. And with John McCain eager to distance himself from anything related to the President, and Barack Obama ??eager to tie himself to anything related to Kennedy, Whitmire's thesis doesn't seem so far-fetched, does it?
