Current Educational System An Economic Hindrance, Say Senate Dems

By Anna Cameron

Moderate Senate Democrats gathered Wednesday on the Walker Jones Education Campus in D.C., a pre-K-8 school, to introduce key principles in American education by stressing the need for the urgency of reform to the No Child Left Behind program.

“Education is the civil rights issue of our generation,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who joined the group in its call for action. “I am absolutely convinced that the dividing line in our country today is less around race and class than it is around educational opportunity.”

Furthermore, Senators warned that in addition having divisive effects, the crisis in education could be detrimental on an economic and competitive level. For example, over the past ten years the United States has gone from first to fifteenth globally in terms of the production of college graduates.

“Today a college degree is a prerequisite for success, and an educated workforce is a necessity for our country to compete in the global economy,” said Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in response to the statistic. “Our failure to ensure such opportunity..risks granting our generation with the unfortunate legacy of being the first America to leave less opportunity, and not more, to our kids…”

Addressing several problems in No Child Left Behind, the proposed principles aim to close the Title I Comparability loophole, support bold efforts at school turnaround, target accountability structures, foster innovation, and ameliorate teacher recruitment, training, and evaluation systems.

“As we work to fix No Child Left Behind, we believe that these principles will prepare our students with the skills to compete in the twenty-first century global economy,” noted Senator Kay Hagan (D-N.C.)

Education Secretary Arne Duncan stressed the urgent necessity of immediate bipartisan reform, as he called for action before the Congressional recess in August.

“We need to do it now, we would love to have this done before the August recess,…and we have to do it together,” concluded Duncan.