Blessedly, Senator Obama was not in Washington the last time ‘No Child Left Behind’ came before the U.S. Congress. Sadly, his colleagues from Illinois voted for the terrible legislation, even while some of them were opposing things like the Iraq War, which we place at the same level of mistakes of the Bush Years. ‘No Child...’ is not going to get better with age, and no tinkering can improve it.

Obama and other so-called ‘progressive’ political leaders should break with ‘No Child...’ this year. By the next time it comes up for renewal, the damage will have been so vast that it will take decades for public education to recover.

If Obama and his progressive colleagues want us to assemble testimony from a dozen or two reputable critics of ‘No Child Left Behind’ we can do so. But an even better, and less expensive, way of handling the problem can be done within Obama’s own family. As most people in Chicago know, Obama’s wife, Michelle, is a proud graduate of Chicago’s Whitney Young Magnet High School. Here is our suggestion: Mr. Obama should ask his wife for a life of the best high school teachers she had while at Young. Many of them are still teaching. Then Sen. Obama should call us for a list of some of the best high school teachers working within three miles of Young. We’ll supply that. If Obama finds one decent teacher in support of ‘No Child...’ we’ll go to Washington. If not, he should drop the idea and oppose NCLB.