The Washington Post’s Maria Glod reports today on how neither major presidential candidate ever mentions No Child Left Behind, George W. Bush’s federal, test-based, education policy that enjoyed wide bipartisan support when it became law in 2002. Now, like much of the Bush agenda, NCLB is a discredited policy, trashed by Barack Obama and ignored by John McCain.

One could put together a book of articles in the past month themed around "issues the candidates aren’t talking about." For example, last week’s 9/11 anniversary brought a series of articles about how neither candidate has substantively addressed a range of national security issues, including what in the world to do with the mammoth Dept. of Homeland Security. I like these articles, though I’m not sure how unique the lack of issues is to Campaign ‘08.

Anyway, back to education. It seems that the Dept. of Education is in a huge bind, because NCLB was supposed to have been renewed last fall and has stayed stalled. What are DOE civil servants doing right now? Also, there are clear distinctions on education between Obama and McCain, which Glod quickly lays out. But the clearest distinction seems to be that Obama, at least, has something resembling a plan. McCain appears truly disinterested about this whole childhood learning thing.-MB

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