Rahm Emanuel

Mr. Barksdale from Netscape, and he came from Mississippi, put his money into it, put the first $200 million.

So public schools were supported with public resources and accountability came with those resources.

Around the country, Republicans are advocating a way to abandon public schools and Democrats advocated and succeeded in abandoning standards and our kids are falling through the cracks.

Yeah.

We're at a 30-year low.

50% of our kids can't read at grade level.

I don't know what makes you think fourth and fifth grade are going to be okay.

If they're third grade, they're failing.

And nobody seems to think this is worth worrying about.

Now, there are other reforms along the way.

Every place that has adopted the whole program, not just science and reading, the support for teachers and the support for students with standards of attachment, as I said, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee being the most

kind of comprehensive in adopting the Mississippi model, all seeing rapid increases in reading scores.

Democrats, getting back to the science of reading or the accountability, thought that leave no child behind under President Bush, they were teaching to the test rather than using the test as a measure of success or failure or improvement.

Not wrong, but the answer wasn't to abandon it, which is what we all did as a country.

The answer is how to find that sweet spot where, yes, you have a test, yes, you have a measure.

It's a reflection of whether we're making progress, but it doesn't become the only thing you're doing from an academic standpoint.

And we...

meaning the country, led by Democrats, walked away from standards and accountability.

And that is a mistake.

Now, this is going to get me in trouble, but I'm for it.