DR says: Thank you, Washington Post, for putting above the fold what DR has been saying for a long time: Bush and the Republicans are acutely vulnerable on the education issue and it’s likely to be a liability for them in 2004.

A brief recap. Democrats have historically dominated the education issue but Bush narrowed the gap during the 2000 campaign with his compassionate conservative rhetoric and his promise to improve education by raising standards. With the bipartisan passage of the No Child Left Behind education reform act on January 8, 2002, the gap was essentially erased.

But ever since then the gap has re-opened in the Democrats’ favor. Republican pollster David Winston pegs the Democrats’ current advantage at 14 points, consistent with the findings of recent public polls.

The reason for this is simple. The stringent standards of the No Child Left Behind Act were not–and still haven’t been–matched by a commitment of resources to help lagging schools meet those standards. Consequently, while massive numbers of schools–half or more in some states–are now in danger of being characterized as “failing” and suffering penalties as a result, there is no money available from the federal level to help them. Nor, given most states’ fiscal situations, is it really feasible for states to provide substantial new assistance to help these schools meet standards. And the latest round of Bush tax cuts has just made this situation worse, since many states peg their tax rates to the federal rates and therefore will be bringing in even less revenue than before. Finally, under the provisions of the new law, standards are supposed to become more stringent with every year, which will almost certainly increase the number of schools subject to sanction.

It is this dreadful situation that has led to public disenchantment with the GOP’s educational approach. High standards + no money = big problem. The Democrats have a golden opportunity to highlight this contradiction, making the point over and over again that the GOP has imposed this mandate on the states, but chose to fund tax cuts for the rich instead of the schools that are supposed to leave no child behind. And the Republicans dare to criticize the Democrats for promoting “unfunded mandates”!

As the article points out, the high standards vs. no money problem is particularly acute in some key swing states like West Virginia. Thus, not only is the education issue of great importance to various swing voter groups (for example, married women), but it also has the potential to directly boost Democratic electoral vote totals in 2004.

If all this is true, why have Democratic presidential candidates been so reticent about this issue? Maybe they’re afraid to seem opposed to standards. Maybe they think the economy and health care are so important, they don’t need to bother with education.

Who knows? All DR knows is they’re wrong not to pounce on this issue and push it as hard as they can–not only the shortcomings and contradictions of the No Child Left Behind Act, but also the profound unresponsiveness of the GOP to the clear need to modernize our educational system. Why are schools still on the agricultural calendar, with school buildings mostly closed outside of the short school day, when working parents and the challenges of the information economy obviously demand so much more? Why isn’t preschool universally available to all families? Why does the salary structure for teachers still reflect the days when educated women couldn’t do much else other than be teachers, when we literally needs millions of high quality, high skill people to enter the teaching profession? The Republicans have no good answers to these questions; Democrats should.