Obama Unlearns His Classroom Lesson

As he approaches his last year in office, President Barack Obama seems weirdly passive about protecting one of his signature domestic achievements: education reform. It's a mistake that will undermine future efforts to help American students compete and succeed.

Obama once could claim to have one of the boldest education agendas of any president in recent history. Then, in October, he announced he would seek to limit testing. And now he's indicated he'll sign the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act, a bill that reflects Republicans' unhealthy suspicion of the federal government and Democrats' unhealthy trust of teachers' unions. In other words, the worst of both worlds.