John McCain
Town Hall
Nashua, NH 06/12/08
TRANSCRIPT:
QUESTIONER: "I'm a school board in Exeter and I'd like to ask you what your feeling is on No Child Left Behind. It is a well intentioned program but it is not working. We have wonderful teachers who are frustrated, principals who are losing because we have a program that's impossible to meet. We want to educate our kids and we do a fantastic job but the problem is the expectations are we'll have everybody by 2013 at grade level and we have autistic children, we have children with all types of learning disabilities. We have no other program of testing for these kids that are allowed and it's a frustration with us as school board members, teachers, faculty, administrators. It's tough. Do you have an answer or do you have a goal for this?"
JOHN MCCAIN: "I have, yes and I'd like you to hang on to the microphone because you are obviously well versed on this issue. Very quickly, No Child Left Behind, in my view, was a good beginning. It was the first time we've tried to give parents an opportunity to compare their child's performance with other children across this country. It was a good effort at trying to improve teacher performance. It was a good effort in trying to have some form of standardized testing. But it was also, as you know, basically revolutionary. It was the first time the federal government had moved into a major role in education in America. But I would also like to remind you that education in America needed fixing. So well, people who say, let's just scrap the No Child Left Behind. Let's fix it. Let's learn the lessons of the years, of the intervening years. Let's all sit down together, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative and say, look, we'll work together, learn the lessons of it. And by the way, also, fully fund these special education programs which are a federal responsibility. Autism is on the rise in America. You know how tragic that is, it's incredible, we've got to find out the cause of it by the way my friends. We've got to fix the No Child Left Behind and give a better opportunity to children. Finally, one other comment, I was recently in the city of New Orleans. The city of New Orleans as we all know experienced a great tragedy and they had to start literally from square one on education and guess what, there are now thirty charter schools in the city of New Orleans and guess what, education is on a path to dramatic improvement in the city of New Orleans because parents have a choice. [applause] Because parents are being given a choice. Choice and competition is the answer. Please respond."
QUESTIONER: "I think that's great. And one of the solutions that have been brought out has been follow the child. That is what you need to do, you need to look at each individual child and state that the child is growing, the child is learning. When you have an ECAP test or any other test that comes through with a level that has risen every two years, it comes to the point where it is impossible to meet the expectations and therefore you're right, it's a great theory and I agree with it. It just needs to be revamped and it needs to be made attainable so that—"
MCCAIN: "Lessons learned. Lessons learned."
QUESTIONER: "I agree with that. I agree with that. And I'm just asking you to take a look at what needs to be changed."
MCCAIN: "I will and I will make one additional editorial comment. Why don't we reward good teachers and find good teachers." [applause]
LABEL: JM NH 6-12 (GR#88) DdHECS - Clip C
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