Liberals Demonstrate Bias on NCLB in Election Year, Says Education Expert
by Jim Brown
September 9, 2004
(AgapePress) - An education reform advocate says many of the attacks on President Bush's signature education law are completely spurious.Critics of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) continue to argue the law is under-funded and its requirements too complex. But Krista Kafer, a senior education policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation, says liberal special-interest groups oppose accountability and want more taxpayer funds without any proof that those funds are going to useful purposes.
When those groups attack NCLB, Kafer says, they do so with political motivation. "The left has one particular aim when it levels these attacks," the education analysts says, "and that is to bring in the candidate of their choice this coming November. They're not interested in the facts, they're not interested in a serious review of the law."
The Heritage Foundation representative admits the No Child Left Behind Act is no panacea. "Like any other large body of legislation, the Act is complex," she says. "It's neither all good nor all bad." But she contends liberal, left-leading groups seldom if ever offer anything positive about the Act.
For example, Kafer says one will never hear from those groups that federal funding for education is at an all-time high -- and that spending increases for education under the Bush administration have been higher than previous administrations. And there are many more positives about the Act that those groups will not admit to, she says.
"You're not going to hear that parents, in many cases for the first time, are actually learning about how their child is doing in school, in [subjects like] math and reading -- and how their [child's] school is doing compared to other schools," Kafer says.
"You're not going to hear that children, for the first time, actually may receive a public school choice and be able to go to a school that better meets their needs. You're not going to hear that thousands of children are getting free tutoring under the Act."
The National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the world, has voiced its opposition to the NCLB. That organization says the Act presents "real obstacles" to helping students and strengthening public schools because, in the NEA's opinion, it punishes rather than assists schools, and it focuses on "mandates rather than support" for effective programs. The NEA recently used nearly $2 million in teachers' dues to fund ads attacking the No Child Left Behind Act.
