When Politics Trumps Kids
One of the better-kept secrets among those in the “know” in federal education policy circles is that the No Child Left Behind Act almost certainly will not receive the attention of our elected officials when it comes up for reauthorization in 2007. Even though the law has resulted in sweeping changes over the federal role in education and state and district responsibilities for showing progress in student achievement, and even though there are untold numbers of tweaks, revisions, and outright changes that most experts see as necessary given the way the law has played out over the past five years, American children will likely have to wait until 2008 or even 2009 (one blogger has set the over-under as 2009) before the politicians their parents have elected will come together under the banner of “bi-partisanship” to ensure that the law does the best it can by youth.
If this seems odd to you, that politicians would willingly pass up on a chance to learn from their mistakes from the original 2001 version of the law and pass up on the opportunity to craft legislation that would extend quality educational opportunities to more of our children, you’re giving them too much credit. As is the usual refrain with issues affecting young people, politics is king: neither democrats nor republicans want the divisions over education policy within their parties (the GOP is split between conservative states righters and others who believe in a federal role in extending choice and opportunity; the Dems are split between liberal educators who dislike standards and testing and others who affirm a federal attempt to crack down on the achievement gap) to be revealed prior to the 2008 presidential election and so neither will bring it up. In other words, if lawmakers have more to lose by talking about the law than students have to gain, then, well, tough luck kids.
But before you go chalking this up to “politics as usual”, ask yourself this: why do children in America always get short shrift? No politician would ever dare to delay on a vote to extend funding to our armed forces in Iraq, even though there are divisions in the parties over the proper course there. Yet millions of kids live each day without health care or a quality public school to attend—while politicians twiddle their thumbs. At a time when a mangled joke gets a politician in trouble about his loyalty to the troops, why aren’t all of our politicians in trouble about their loyalty—or lack theirof—to the children?