Dick Durbin: “Most of us in the Senate joined President Bush in voting for No Child Left Behind. When the President took office and…”

“Most of us in the Senate joined President Bush in voting for No Child Left Behind. When the President took office and said he wanted to make a bipartisan commitment to change education in America, many of us took him seriously and did our best to join him and passed legislation which was historic because it established an obligation of local school districts across America to test children to make certain that they were making progress. It also included some penalties for those schools that were not making progress, for fear that children, after a number of years, would fall so far behind they would never have a chance. It really created an incentive in one respect and a penalty in another respect for those school districts where schools found children falling further and further behind. There were those who said that this focus on testing was excessive. I shared their concerns but believed that it was an important element in bringing our schools to a national standard of excellence.”