Walz win gets notice from Education Week and Teacher Magazine

Democratic Majority to Put Education Policy on Agenda

Minn. Teacher Elected

After their 1994 election victory, Republicans set out to dramatically scale back the federal government’s role in K-12 policy by closing the Department of Education and slashing the financing of many of its programs, including Title I and others that are now at the heart of the No Child Left Behind law. Those proposals, however, never became reality because President Clinton and congressional Democrats resisted them.

“This will be a change of lens,” Ms. Allen said of the Democratic takeover. “The modest change in philosophy is not going to make a major difference.”

But the new Democrats could complicate the NCLB renewal.

While Rep. Miller and Sen. Kennedy, both liberals, joined with President Bush in championing the law and support its central tenets, Democratic lawmakers coming to Washington for the first time are unlikely to have the same commitment to the law or any pride of authorship in it.

Most of the new Democratic freshmen, in fact, have significant reservations about the way it is affecting schools, according to their campaign Web sites.

Tim Walz, a high school teacher elected to the House from a southern Minnesota district, wrote on his site that the law is an “uneven, bureaucratic nightmare” that “harms the students and schools who need it most.” [Emphasis mine.]

(The article is here. PHOTO—Jason DeCrow/AP.)