While presidential candidates of all stripes continue to call for the end of the federal No Child Left Behind Law, Senator Ted Kennedy continues to push to renew (with improvements) the historic law. Writing in this morning's Washington Post, he ties the goals of the law back to a fundamental principle for the Democratic Party: opportunity for all.
Kennedy highlights what he sees are the successes and failures of the law to-date, and takes a swipe at President Bush for his unwillingness to fund the law at adequate levels.
But then it gets personal for him:
Four decades ago, my brother Robert Kennedy asked at a Senate hearing on education: "What happened to the children?" That question is as appropriate today as it was in 1966. We're still not doing enough for the nation's schools and children.
As Democrats and Republicans choose their nominees in our democratic process, and as President Bush prepares to deliver his last State of the Union address, let us all remember that we owe it to our children and our children's children to put progress ahead of politics and support what is working in school reform, and to work together to fix what is not.