In this morning's WaPo, VA Sen. George Allen tells us all about the supposed deficiencies of the No Child Left Behind Act, but almost nothing about the legislation he's introduced to address those problems. Why? Because he's understandably hesitant to have you know that his bill would essentially gut the original act, and leave us with a whole new federal education policy here in the United States: Only Minorities and Special Needs Kids Left Behind. And that's just a terrible idea, despite the fact that many of my fellow Democrats (and, sadly, a growing number of Republicans) would support it.

Frankly, President Bush is right on this, and he has been from day one. Every child in this country has a right to a decent education, and the rest of us have a right to know they're getting it. That means testing, and it means reporting the results of those tests in a way that doesn't mask failure. Despite its shortcomings, NCLB delivered those things. We'd be foolish to let anyone take them away now.

POSTSCRIPT: For the record, I'm not saying that NCLB can't be improved. Like just about anything else, it can be. But Sen. Allen's legislation doesn't represent progress in that direction. And we Dems shouldn't pretend otherwise just because it gives us a chance to stroke our political allies and to bash the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.