Races for Congress Have Sparse Debate on Education Issues
Some Candidates Hit NCLB, But Offer Few Specifics
The next Congress will have some big education items on its to-do list: reauthorizing the No Child Left Behind Act, determining the fate of the private-school-voucher program in the District of Columbia, and finishing the spending bill for the fiscal year that began this month.
But congressional candidates from both major parties aren’t being very specific about how they would address those issues, in part because other concerns, particularly the economy, are dominating House and Senate races. And it seems that contenders aren’t really sure what to say about the most pressing federal question in education: How should policymakers reshape the nearly 7-year-old NCLB law?
As a result, candidates are largely sidestepping the issue—or offering broad, largely critical rhetoric on the law without much policy detail, said Joe Williams, the executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, a New York...
This article is available to subscribers only.
To keep reading this article and more, subscribe now or start a 2-week FREE trial.
Subscribe to Education Week
You Save 20% or More!
Access selected articles, e-newsletters and more!
Viewed
Emailed
Recommended
Commented
Sponsored Whitepapers
• Best Practices in Information Management, Reporting and Analytics for Education
• Smart infrastructure report to get your district ready for future IT needs.
• Integrating Social and Emotional RTI to Improve Student Performance
• Taming the wild west: How America’s third largest school district manages PCs, Macs, and iPads
• Overcoming the Odds: Getting Every Student to College YES Prep Shares Its Success Story
- Principal
- Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, Multiple Locations
- Openings for 2013-2014
- Newton Public Schools, Newton, MA
- Principal
- Amargosa Valley Elementary School, Amargosa Valley, NV
- Superintendent
- Round Rock ISD, Round Rock, TX
- Principal
- The Berkeley Institute, HAMILTON, Bermuda