Thompson regrets vote for No Child Left Behind
CLINTON, Iowa — Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson, who has been critical of the No Child Left Behind education reform law, said Tuesday that his vote for it six years ago was an example of “hope” winning out over “experience.”
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View slideshow and video of Fred Thompson in Clinton
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Thompson met with about 100 people at the Sweetheart Bakery in Clinton as part of a campaign swing through Iowa that began Saturday and concludes today in Dubuque.
Thompson, who was in the U.S. Senate representing Tennessee when the education law was passed, said he liked it in the beginning, but it was watered down by the time it came to a vote.
“It didn’t look nearly as good. But I went ahead and maybe in another case of a triumph of hope over experience, I voted for it,” he said.
He said the law has had “mixed results.”
“One of the negative parts of it is that states have now set these standards in a way that’s most likely to have everybody have high achievement to keep the federal money flowing.”
The education law, while lauded by President Bush and winning near unanimous approval from Congress in 2001, has been criticized by people in both political parties since then.
Democrats say not enough money is being spent and the law is too punitive toward schools.
Some Republicans, like Thompson, say test scores are not accurately measuring academic progress. And some conservatives still are not happy that school vouchers for private schools were not included.
In its annual report card last week, the administration said students were progressing or holding steady in 48 states.
“To those who would suggest that No Child Left Behind is not working, our nation’s fourth- and eighth-graders and their teachers just proved the naysayers wrong,” Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said.
Thompson took another view.
He said he prefers a block grant program to send money to states setting “objective standards.”
He also spoke highly of vouchers and charter schools.
Thompson was making his second trip to the Quad-City region since announcing his candidacy.
A few people here, none of whom had firmly decided on a candidate yet, said he is toward the top of their lists.
“His comments were all down-to-earth and common-sense,” said Floyd Marx, a farmer from Goose Lake, Iowa, who has attended the caucuses since 1980.
Thompson spent about an hour in Clinton. He gave a 30-minute stump speech and took two questions. He did not talk with reporters.
While there, he also suggested the country is not spending enough on the military and has not come to grips with the threatof radical Islamists.
“We’re funding this thing in large part with supplemental appropriations, and we don’t really want to acknowledge the nature of it. And everybody’s thinking about X troops in X days and that sort of thing,” he said. “We’re going to have to deal with radical Islamic fundamentalism for for some time to come.”
Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.