Some children left behind

Seattle Times: Two years after Congress passed landmark legislation to improve public schools, finger-pointing and election-year politics threaten to destroy one of the country's most ambitious attempts to fix failing public schools. What a shame.
The No Child Left Behind Act clearly needs improvement and should be funded at its promised level. But the growing backlash against the law -- including Howard Dean's call to dismantle it -- is polarizing the country at a time when reforming schools is more critical than ever.
Public education is not a Republican or Democratic issue. Neither party should allow the other to hold better schools hostage to politics.
Teachers unions, school administrators and many Democrats around the country are bashing the law. One school district in Connecticut rejected federal funding to escape the mandates. Gen. Wesley Clark has called it a failure. At the same time, the Bush administration and other Republicans are holding it up as historic education reform that is making a difference around the country.
The jury's still out
The truth is, it's too early to tell whether the law is a failure or a triumph. But one thing is clear: The law's premise -- that all schools should be held to high, measurable standards and required to raise student achievement -- is correct. This country can no longer allow race and income level to determine the quality of a student's education.
The sweeping reform is undoubtedly flawed. Clearly, there should be greater flexibility in assessing students with limited English proficiency and more realistic goals for annual progress. In some states and districts, the law puts an absurd number of schools on the "needs improvement" list. And more work needs to be done around measuring and improving teacher quality.
This was bipartisan legislation. Educators and legislators from all sides should be figuring out how to make it better. Calls for accountability and improved teacher quality, after all, started long before this administration. Many Democrats, including President Clinton, were pushing for such changes a decade ago. Sen. Edward Kennedy was one of this law's primary supporters.
And it's going to take broad agreement across the aisle that current funding levels simply do not reflect the true cost of educating all children to these new, higher standards.