No right or left on accountability

By Jim Stergios
July 15th, 2008

From the weekend Wall Street Journal, an editorial worth noting. The Wrong Education Fix notes that there are Republicans who have gone soft on the accountability measures associated with the No Child Left Behind Act. On the other hand:

What’s heartening about this story is who has lined up to block this nonsense. The coalition includes the Citizens Commission on Civil Rights, the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, the National Urban League, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund and more than a dozen other liberal outfits.

In a letter to House members, the coalition said it opposed the proposal because “it would allow states, districts, and schools to receive federal funding under the No Child Left Behind Act with no accountability for complying with key provisions of the law.”

Accountability matters to most everybody, no matter what their political persuasion. Thus the disappointment we feel at the Governor’s shuttering of the state’s independent accountability office. Really, shame on you, Governor. For all the talk about leadership on education, this single action risks putting us behind other states in terms of performance. The state’s accountability office cost $3 million a year, to provide transparency for the $9 billion (with a B) that we spend annually on education. Didn’t we learn anything from the Big Dig?