The Silence of the Dems

There's a lot going on in our country today, and the Presidential candidates have a lot to think about and a lot to talk about. Ending the war is number one, as well it should be. But that's just a short term goal--in a year or two we will not have the war to kick around anymore, though we have decades of recovering from this abomination mentally and spiritually to get through. We haven't even gotten over the Vietnam war. Health care and Social Security, a looming recession/depression, pervasive racism, the increasingly large gap between the rich and the poor, terrorism, and (my other most pressing issue) energy independence: all these are getting at least some attention from the candidates.

Yet the one issue that has crucial long-term implications for this country--the repeal of the NCLB--seems to be sliding into the background. The NCLB is a ticking time bomb planted by the Bush Administration, and its ticks are beginning to be increasingly ignored by the Democratic candidates. Edweek, in its November 6 article "The Next Education President?", writes, "But with the campaigns for the 2008 presidential nominations in full swing, few of the current candidates have laid out detailed strategies for improving the quality of American schools and increasing the knowledge and skills of the nation’s elementary and secondary students." And "Many political analysts expect education issues to remain a low priority during the primaries and in the general-election campaign."

Over the summer, it seemed as focus on the renewal of the NCLB and especially during the NEA Convention, when the candidates were trying to curry some favor with educators, there was a certain amount of awareness and lip-service from the candidates. I just searched YouTube for some candidates' video from the NEA convention and found a couple of interesting ones: Senator Clinton: "The test is becoming the curriculum"; and Senator Obama: "Don't tell us that the only way to teach a child is to spend too much of the year preparing him to fill out a few bubbles on a standardized test." I confess that, for those few moments, at least, Hillary seemed to be more on top of what's wrong with the NCLB. But since then, in her public pronouncements and on her website, mostly silence on the matter. And the same with most of the other Democrats.

So what's the appeal of the NCLB for the voters or the constituencies or the financial backers that the major candidates are afraid to come out and say, with minor candidate Bill Richardson, "Scrap it!"?

When the Bush-NCLB timebomb goes off in 10 years or so, when today's sixth graders are beginning to enter the workforce, the voting ranks, major positions of power and authority and decision-making, we'll all look at each other, and say "how come everyone is so stupid? Why can't they think or imagine?" Because the NCLB has made us a nation of test takers, capable only of giving memorized answers that were correct ten years ago.

Wake up and speak up, Sens. Clinton, Edwards, and Obama.