Education

Ex-President’s Entry into NCLB Debate Could Endanger Reauthorization

February 05, 2008 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

President Clinton’s “train wreck” comments last week set off a discussion among the wonkish edubloggers. Phyllis McClure e-mailed me an several others that Clinton has amnesia. He forgets that he signed a 1994 law that had many of NCLB’s key elements and that his administration didn’t enforce it. Charlie Barone writes in two different items (here and here) that NCLB was the natural outgrowth of that 1994 law.

Leo Casey suggests that Clinton’s statement validates his theory that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., traded his endorsement for the NCLB vote of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. But Sherman Dorn sees nothing other than bare-bones politics: “I don’t think Bill Clinton gives a hoot about NCLB right now, but if he can use it to smear Kennedy and undermine that endorsement, he will.”

No one answers the question about NCLB’s future. Will the former president’s NCLB statements help or hinder the law’s reauthorization? Hinder, I say.

As I pointed out in this article now on edweek.org, all of the key players are saying they want to reauthorize NCLB this year. But they still appear to be far apart on the specifics of NCLB’s divisive items, such as accountability, choice, teacher quality, and others. (See a rundown of issues in my Friday post.) Now the ex-president’s statement creates a divide among Democrats, including the two top candidates for presidents. Complicating things, both Sen. Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., are members of Sen. Kennedy’s committee.

The rumors are that the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee will take up NCLB on March 3. If the Democratic presidential nomination is still undecided then, what are the prospects of that happening? Predictions anyone?

A version of this news article first appeared in the NCLB: Act II blog.

Events

Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
Privacy & Security Webinar
Navigating Cybersecurity: Securing District Documents and Data
Learn how K-12 districts are addressing the challenges of maintaining a secure tech environment, managing documents and data, automating critical processes, and doing it all with limited resources.
Content provided by Softdocs

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: January 17, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education In Their Own Words The Stories That Stuck With Us, 2023 Edition
Our newsroom selected five stories as among the highlights of our work. Here's why.
4 min read
102523 IMSE Reading BS
Adria Malcolm for Education Week
Education Opinion The 10 Most-Read Opinions of 2023
Here are Education Week’s most-read Opinion blog posts and essays of 2023.
2 min read
Collage of lead images for various opinion stories.
F. Sheehan for Education Week / Getty
Education Letter to the Editor EdWeek's Most-Read Letters of 2023
Read the most-read Letters to the Editor of the past year.
1 min read
Illustration of a line of diverse hands holding up speech bubbles in front of a subtle textured newspaper background
iStock/Getty