Candidates' positions are categorized as Pro (Yes), Con (No), Not Clearly Pro or Con, or None Found. Candidates who have changed their positions are listed as Now their most recent position. Candidates are listed by party and in alphabetical order by last name. Black & white photos indicate candidates who have withdrawn or who no longer meet our criteria for inclusion.
Has the No Child Left Behind Act been effective at improving public education?
Virgil Goode, former US Representative (R-VA), stated the following on his campaign website page "The Issues," available at www.goodeforpresident2012.com (accessed July 16, 2012):
"Washington should not be running our local school systems. We need to leave local education decisions to the states and localities. I am opposed to national testing of public school students and voted against 'No Child Left Behind' with its new mandates and new tests that must comply with national standards. I support ending the federal Department of Education." July 16, 2012 Virgil Goode
[Editor's Note: In a May 14, 2012 email to ProCon.org, Virgil Goode stated "No" in response to our question "Has the No Child Left Behind Act been effective at improving public education?"]
Gary Johnson, former Governor of New Mexico, stated the following in a Sep. 17, 2011 interview "Gov. Gary Johnson's First Google+ Hangout," available on YouTube.com:
“I think the best thing the federal government could do when it comes to education nationwide would be to abolish the Federal Department of Education… Washington top down doesn’t work. No Child Left Behind, everything it is that the federal government mandates ends up giving us this mediocre education system. And it’s not a mediocre education system. It’s terrible.” Sep. 17, 2011 Gary Johnson
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, stated the following in a Sep, 23, 2011 speech delivered in the White House East Room, available at www.whitehouse.gov:
"And I want to say the goals behind No Child Left Behind were admirable, and President Bush deserves credit for that. Higher standards are the right goal. Accountability is the right goal. Closing the achievement gap is the right goal. And we’ve got to stay focused on those goals. But experience has taught us that, in it’s implementation, No Child Left Behind had some serious flaws that are hurting our children instead of helping them. Teachers too often are being forced to teach to the test. Subjects like history and science have been squeezed out. And in order to avoid having their schools labeled as failures, some states, perversely, have actually had to lower their standards in a race to the bottom instead of a Race to the Top. They don't want to get penalized? Let’s make sure that the standards are so low that we’re not going to be seen failing to meet them. That makes no sense.” Sep. 23, 2011 Barack Obama
[Editor's Note: Prior to Barack Obama's Sep. 23, 2011 Not Clearly Pro or Con position above, he held a Con position as indicated by the Jan. 28, 2008 statement below from "Issues: Education" on his official 2008 presidential campaign website.]
"No Child Left Behind Left the Money Behind: The goal of the law was the right one, but unfulfilled funding promises, inadequate implementation by the Education Department and shortcomings in the design of the law itself have limited its effectiveness and undercut its support. As a result, the law has failed to provide high-quality teachers in every classroom and failed to adequately support and pay those teachers."'] Jan. 28, 2008 Barack Obama
Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, stated the following in his 2010 book No Apology:
"Former president George W. Bush was right to champion the No Child Left Behind legislation, which requires states to test student progress and to evaluate school performance – it was the only way to ensure that critical information reached the public. Only the federal government had the clout to force testing through the barricade mounted by the national teachers’ unions." 2010 Mitt Romney
Jill Stein, MD, former Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, stated the following during a Feb. 25, 2012 debate with Kent Mesplay at the Glendale Public Library, Glendale, AZ, hosted by the Maricopa County Green Party, available at YouTube.com:
"[W]e need to reject this facade of No Child Left Behind... which basically commodifies education, commodifies our children, and we need to return to a broad concept of educating for lifelong learning and teaching the whole student." Feb. 25, 2012 Jill Stein
Michele Bachmann, US Representative (R-MN), stated the following in her Aug. 11, 2009 article "No Child Left Behind Misses the Mark," available at bachmann.house.gov:
"NCLB makes it nearly impossible for local schools to tailor their educational programs and curricula to meet their students’ needs and give our children the education they deserve…
In fact, as a State Senator in Minnesota in 2004, I introduced a bill that would extract Minnesota from the strictures of the No Child Left Behind law…
If this latest assessment of Minnesota's public schools tells us anything, it's that No Child Left Behind must be repealed and control of our education returned to the local level. Our children and teachers deserve better.” Aug. 11, 2009 Michele Bachmann
Herman Cain, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and Chairman of Godfather's Pizza, stated the following during the Aug. 11, 2011 Republican presidential candidate debate in Ames, IA, available at foxnewsinsider.com:
"BAIER: Mr. Cain, let me just ask you the education question. If you were president, would you return to the full enforcement of the No Child Left Behind law?
CAIN: No. I believe in education starting at the local. No Child Left Behind had some faults. I don‘t believe in unfunded mandates. I believe that the federal government should be out of the business of trying to micromanage the education of our children." Aug. 11, 2011 Herman Cain
Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the US House of Representatives (R-GA), stated the following as quoted in the May 7, 2009 article "Gingrich, Sharpton Meet with Obama on Education," available at CNN.com:
"I think that education should be the first civil right of the 21st century and I think we have to move forward from No Child Left Behind towards helping every American get ahead." May 7, 2009 Newt Gingrich
Jon Huntsman, former Governor of Utah, stated the following during the Aug. 11, 2011 Republican presidential candidate debate in Ames, IA, available at www.foxnewsinsider.com:
"No Child Left Behind hasn‘t worked for this country. It ought to be done away with. We need to take education to the local level, where parents and local elected officials can determine the destiny of these schools. Nobody wants their schools to succeed more than local elected officials and their parents." Aug. 11, 2011 Jon Huntsman
Ron Paul, US Representative (R-TX), stated the following during the Sep. 22, 2011 Republican presidential candidate debate in Orlando, FL, available at foxnews.com:
"So the first thing a president should do is - the goal should be set to get the government out [of education] completely, but don't enforce this law of No Child Left Behind. It's not going to do any good, and nobody likes it. And there's no value to it. The teachers don't like it, and the students don't like it." Sep. 22, 2011 Ron Paul
Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, wrote the following in his 2010 bookFed Up!: Our Fight to Save America from Washington:
“This legislation [NCLB] is a direct assault on federalism. It increases Washington’s power over the education of your children by holding billions of dollars over the heads of states to encourage them to adhere to specific tasting standards and requirements. Since the inception of NCLB, federal funding of schools is up more than 40 percent. In 2001, Republicans in the Senate supported the measure 43-6, and in the House, 184-34. Maybe with that great title on the bill, it was a hard one, politically, to leave behind?” 2010 Rick Perry
ProCon.org emailed the Roemer campaign for his position to this question on Feb. 8, 2012. We have not yet received a reply with Roemer's position as of Feb. 14, 2012.
Rick Santorum, former US Senator (R-PA), stated the following during a Nov. 28, 2011 interview with the Nashua Telegraph, "Rick Santorum Interview," available at www.nashuatelegraph.com:
"One of the areas I freely admit a mistake was voting for No Child Left Behind... at the time there was a sirens call to have some sort of national testing so we could have a better evaluation of how we were doing as a country, and I was lured by that... we've seen no discernable improvement in the quality of education, and so, I made a bad deal in signing up on that." Nov. 28, 2011 Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum, former Senator (R-PA), stated the following during a Jan. 24, 2011 interview, "Q&A: Rick Santorum Discusses Controlling the Debt, Entitlement Reform, Education, Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage, the War on Terror and Immigration," available at www.cnsnews.com:
"I voted for No Child Left Behind. The reason I voted for No Child Left Behind, one reason: For years and years and years, we would say our education system isn’t working, its failing. Look at the results. And the teachers unions and others say: Well, it’s not true your looking at this, your looking at this, and you looking at apples and oranges and all this stuff. And the reason that I voted for the No Child Left Behind bill is because for the first time we would actually get a measurement that we could use across the board and we could actually find out whether what we believed was true. Now, there are a lot of other things in that bill that I deplored, but I voted for it because I thought, well, we need to get the facts and we need to have some national system to be able to determine whether we are in fact succeeding or failing. Well, guess what? We are failing...
I have to give No Child Left Behind credit for this: Now everybody has recognized that primary, secondary education is a failure in America, and at the heart of it is the teachers unions, at the heart of it is government-run education. And that’s why the move for charter schools, the move for home schooling, private schools is even taking wing among moderates and on the left. I don’t think that would have happened, frankly, had we not had No Child Left Behind. So while I disagree with a lot of the policy in there, I certainly disagree with a lot of the money that was in there, the fact that we now have formed a consensus because we now know we have failure in that level, is a starting point now for now let’s see if we can do something about the public education system." Jan. 24, 2011 Rick Santorum