Democratic Candidates Knock No Child Left Behind

By Josh Drobnyk, The Morning Call, Allentown, Pa.

Jul. 3–Three of the Democratic presidential candidates pitched their education proposals at a forum here Monday, kicking off a four-day period that will bring all but one of the party’s 2008 hopefuls through Pennsylvania.

Addressing members of the National Education Association, U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd and former U.S. Sen. John Edwards laid out a laundry list of goals to improve education. Appearing separately, each spoke about 30 minutes.

The forum marked the candidates’ first policy speeches in Pennsylvania since the race began, and their ideas had a similar ring.

The No Child Left Behind Act? Overhaul it. Early childhood education? Enhance funding for it. Teacher pay? Boost it. Class size? Reduce it. Voucher programs? Oppose them.

The overriding theme: Change the course laid out by President Bush over the last seven years.

"Are you ready for a new approach to education in this country?" Clinton said to roars of applause from the 9,000-person crowd at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. "When I am president, we are putting education back at the top of our national agenda."

That agenda, the New York senator said, starts with universal pre-kindergarten for children starting at age 4, a common refrain from Democrats this election season.

"We know that too many children arrive at school already so far behind that it is so difficult for them to catch up," Clinton said.

The weeklong forum, which will bring seven of the eight Democratic candidates — plus Republican hopeful Mike Huckabee — comes just days after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision that restricts public schools from using race in making acceptance decisions. All three candidates lambasted the move.

"What a shameful, shameful decision," said Dodd, the senior senator from Connecticut.

Clinton said the 5-4 ruling was "a huge setback for us on the march toward justice and racial equality."

But perhaps no topic drew more of the candidates’ time — and ire — than the No Child Left Behind law, which penalizes schools that don’t meet certain standards on national testing and is up for reauthorization this year.

Dodd, picking up a red shirt on stage that read "A Child is More Than A Test Score," drew loud applause from the crowd. "Nothing says it better than that," he said.

Little more than an hour earlier, Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, held the same shirt in front of the audience. He characterized the landmark 2002 education law as an excuse by the Bush administration to move away from public schools and toward voucher programs that allow parents to send their children to private schools using public funding.

All three candidates pushed for more flexibility in the law, smaller class sizes, measuring student progress in multiple ways and more funding for the act’s programs.

Edwards, fighting for the presidency for the second time in four years, has centered his campaign on fighting poverty. He called for increasing the federal minimum wage, which is set to increase to $7.25 within two years, to $9.50 an hour by 2012.

Underscoring the candidates’ similarities on the major education issues, a newsletter distributed by the association showed the seven Democratic hopefuls who are set to address the delegates — former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel turned down the NEA’s invitation — indicating their support for all of the eight proposals listed, including modernizing schools and reducing class size.

Asked afterward what separated him from the other presidential candidates, Edwards said he and his wife attended public school, as do their children. Moments later, though, Dodd reminded the crowd that his 5-year-old daughter attends public school in Washington, D.C.

The candidates’ speeches before the association were at least in part sales pitches to the largest union in the country, which traditionally backs Democrats. The association has 2.7 million members who work in schools.

At least one attendee said she was satisfied with what she heard.

"They all have wonderful things to say," said Jane K. Munley, a 53-year-old criminal justice teacher at Luzerne County Community College. Munley said she’s yet to choose whom she’ll support, and she wasn’t surprised by the similarities. "There are real problems in our education system."

Monday also took the trio of candidates — plus Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who is scheduled to address the NEA today — to a forum at Bright Hope Baptist Church in the city.

Earlier in the day, Clinton accepted the endorsements of Lehigh County Executive Don Cunningham and several Philadelphia political figures, including Mayor John Street, in a ceremony at City Hall.

Cunningham, in an interview before the event, said he’s backing Clinton because she is the most qualified candidate in the field. "Everybody’s trepidation is if she can win the general election," he said. "But I think what we have to do with the party is nominate the best candidate."

jdrobnyk@tribune.com

202-824-8216

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