Making sense of mid-term elections is akin to making sense of the opening break in a pool game. Casual observers sometimes believe that if the person breaking puts several balls into the pockets, he has the inside track on winning. But experienced players know it's how the remaining balls set up that determines the victor.
The opening break last Tuesday was obviously a good one for Democrats, as voters snapped the 12-year Republican hold on both House and Senate and a bunch of governorships as well. Much crowing ensued among the Dems, while the White House dusted off the "bipartisanship" dictionary that it shelved soon after No Child Left Behind cleared the Congress in 2001.
Among education watchers, the speculation began even before the election about how a Democratic "revolution" would affect NCLB's pending re-authorization in 2007 (though few believe it will happen then). Education Week rightly notes that both Rep. George Miller, the next chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, and Sen. Edward Kennedy, incoming (and returning) chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, stand behind the principles of NCLB (after all, they helped to write it) and that its key components are safe in their hands (though much-needed improvements aren't likely to occur).
So far, so good for those of us, whatever our party affiliation, who want to keep NCLB's heart beating. But the law's supporters can't rest easy, because this billiard table doesn't set up so well for NCLB in the near future.
That same Education Week article notes there is a growing anti-NCLB coalition, headed by Sen. Christopher Dodd and Rep. Lynn Woolsey. Each will likely hold powerful education subcommittee seats and may try to rally others to defang the law.
It's these more critical voices that worry party strategists, writes Paul Basken in Tuesday's Bloomberg News. According to his squib, Democratic critics of NCLB are being encouraged by party strategists to tone down their rhetoric lest "they strengthen Republicans who want to kill the law altogether."
Who are these Republicans? They're people such as Rep. Mike Pence, who believes that his party is now in the minority because Bush abandoned the GOP values--limited government and low taxes--that were the foundation of the Reagan Revolution in 1980 and the Republican Revolution in 1994, when Newt Gingrich and company ended 40 years of Democratic control of the House.
"Returning Republicans to the Reagan roots," writes Stephen Moore in the Wall Street Journal (see here; subscription required), "is Mr. Pence's obsession." Which is why he defied W in 2001 and voted against funding for NCLB. "Why," Pence asked at the time, "are we federalizing schools and education?"
Pence is running for Minority Leader against John Boehner, who coauthored NCLB and has spent the past five years as one of its cheerleaders. Odds are that Boehner will win when the vote is taken tomorrow (let's hope the prognosticators are right). But even if he loses, Pence and like-minded Republicans are prepared to make a grab for power in Congress should Republicans regain control again in '08.
Nearly everyone agrees the Ds' victory last Tuesday was less an endorsement of that party's vision than a sign of widespread frustration with Bush. In other words, the old "Reagan Democrats" turned on the GOP and supported Dems such as James Webb in Virginia, Heath Shuler in North Carolina, and Jon Tester in Montana--people who hardly share the progressive notions of party leaders Pelosi, Kennedy, Miller, Dodd, and Woolsey.
If the party leadership forgets this fact (Pelosi promises that she won't, but don't bet on it), those same Reagan Democrats who contributed to the Ds' success last week may show them the door in '08, empowering the newly energized conservatives.
That could spell trouble for NCLB. (And for my colleague's "Washington Consensus.") Pence and his followers wouldn't just tinker around the law's edges. They would be more apt to shoot it through the head. While that's admittedly a long shot, they could weaken it into a shadow of its current self.
For the sake of those states that have embraced NCLB and built new systems that are beginning to show real achievement gains, let's hope that Pelosi and company don't lose their heads.
