NCLB ad at the DNC

Following up on the NCLB ad placed at the DNC, Education Week (arggg! registration req'd) responded quickly .

Convention delegates flipping through copies of the Boston Globe on Monday might have stumbled upon a provocative quarter-page advertisement with the headline: "No Child Left Behind?"

The ad, signed by more than 100 classroom teachers, parents, noted education advocates, and others, suggests the federal law is part of a plan by President Bush "to privatize America's public schools," and that it threatens thousands of schools with closure. The law, the ad argues, encourages "lying about the facts" and "uses blacklists to banish professionals, institutions, methods, and books."

Rebuttal to the ad is provided in the article by the centrist Dems. I thought the rebuttal lacked detail and relied on an emotional argument.

"It's outrageous," said Andrew J. Rotherham, the director of education policy at the Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank aligned with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. "There are legitimate criticisms of No Child Left Behind, but that ad seems to go out of its way to avoid them.

Finally, here's a comment from Susan Ohanian on the whole thing.