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ESSA. Congress. State chiefs. School spending. Elections. Education Week reporters keep watch on education policy and politics in the nation’s capital and in the states. Read more from this blog.

Federal

Biden: Whoops, I Voted the Wrong Way on NCLB

By David J. Hoff — August 24, 2008 1 min read
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Presumptive vice presidential nominee Joe Biden voted for NCLB, but now he regrets it.

The Delaware senator said in a presidential debate last year said he voted for the now controversial law in 2001 because he “has great faith in Ted Kennedy,” the Massachusetts Democrat who led the effort to ensure its bipartisan passage.

It’s time to start over on K-12 policy, Biden added.

I would scrap it—or I guess, theoretically, you could do a major overhaul. But I think I'd start from the beginning. You need better teachers. You need smaller classrooms. You need to start kids earlier. It's all basic.

Biden’s comments are at the bottom of this debate transcript.

For a complete compilation of Biden’s education statements during the primaries, see this summary from ontheissues.org.

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