From the Opinion Journal Political Diary – July 9, 2007

“The eight Democratic presidential candidates assembled in Washington recently for another of their debates and talked, among other things, about public education. They all essentially agreed that it was underfunded — one system ‘for the wealthy, one for everybody else,’ as John Edwards put it. Then they all got into cars and drove through a city where teachers are relatively well paid, per-pupil spending is through the roof and — pay attention here — the schools are among the very worst in the nation. When it comes to education, Democrats are ineducable…. [N]ot a one of them even whispered a word of outrage about a public school system that spends $13,000 per child — third-highest among big-city school systems — and produces pupils who score among the lowest in just about any category you can name. The only area in which the Washington school system is No. 1 is in money spent on administration. The litany of more and more when it comes to money often has little to do with what, in the military, are called facts on the ground: kids and parents. It does have a lot to do with teachers unions, which are strong supporters of the Democratic Party. Not a single candidate offered anything close to a call for real reform” — Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.

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