01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 21, 2005

AN EDUCATION adviser to the Kerry presidential campaign named Robert Gordon -- who has since advised 2008 hopeful John Edwards -- made an interesting argument in The New Republic earlier this month.

Mr. Gordon contends that Democrats should stop letting Republicans eat their lunch on education. Democrats, given their traditional support of a vigorous government and their historic allegiance to the belief that America should be a country "where birth doesn't dictate destiny," should be strong advocates of education reform. They should be carrying the flag especially for minority children in poor school districts.

Instead, Mr. Gordon notes, they too often march in lockstep with the teachers' unions, chant-ing their mantra of "money, money, money" while mounting "unprincipled attacks" against reform. Even if Democratic politicians (including Mr. Kerry) support reform in theory, Mr. Gordon observes, their principles "wither in the heat of Democratic politics."

As a result, Republicans have been leading the charge on education reform -- and voters are noticing. In 1996, two out of three registered voters gave President Clinton higher grades on education than his opponent. "By the end of the 2004 campaign, Bush enjoyed a small lead over Kerry on the issue," Mr. Gordon writes. Since education and other domestic issues have traditionally been Democratic strengths, that does not bode well for the national party.

There seems to be a lesson here for many Rhode Island Democrats, too, who may be turning off parents and taxpayers with their apparent lack of compassion for children in public schools, and their slavish devotion to the state's very powerful and often arrogant teachers' unions.

The state has among the nation's highest per-pupil costs, fueling skyrocketing property taxes -- and the absolute highest per-pupil costs devoted to teacher compensation -- but its students, on average, perform poorly on tests. Rhode Island's young are being poorly prepared to compete in a world where brainpower will be essential.

Improving public schools is no longer a mystery. Experience confirms what common sense would argue: Accountability, high standards and excellent teachers are the key. Mr. Gordon cites a study by the Education Trust that had found that "good teachers are the single most important factor in good schools -- affecting student achievement more than race, poverty, or parental education."

Unfortunately, teachers' unions have become an impediment to such achievement, because they fiercely defend a culture of mediocrity over merit. "Onerous hiring procedures discourage able candidates, while the lockstep pay scale rewards seniority and accumulated degrees, not success," Mr. Gordon writes. Tenure makes it almost impossible to fire bad teachers. The need for excellent teachers is greatest in the poorest schools, yet the best teachers gravitate to the wealthy suburbs. Mediocrity -- and the ethos of griping and entitlement that accompanies it -- drags down the reputation of the entire profession.

Mr. Gordon offers rational reforms for Democrats to embrace:

Change the pay system to stop rewarding mediocrity and start rewarding effort and merit. The "usual liberal solution -- across-the-board pay hikes -- perpetuates the maldistribution of good teachers and reinforces the irrelevance of achievement."

Use bonuses to attract good teachers to poor schools.

Attract better people to the profession with promises of higher pay for better results.

Develop methods for evaluating teachers fairly, so that they are not punished arbitrarily or for political reasons -- then reward the best performers and weed out the worst. With peer and principals' involvement, teacher evaluations could be at least as fair as those "in other professions where performance pay is the norm."

Why should Democrats tackle this problem? Because their traditional values argue for helping children -- especially the poor -- get a better education, and have a fairer shot at the American dream.

Such changes, Mr. Gordon argues, would actually lift the boats of teachers -- and their unions -- because reform would encourage citizens to invest more in public schools. Voters -- and one hears this constantly in Rhode Island, certainly -- are coming to the conclusion that throwing more money at the schools is useless if the money simply goes for lavish adult entitlements, mediocre performance and a tax-them-into-the-stone-age political machine.

To make changes, Democratic politicians will have to put the interests of children ahead of the demands of one of the most important and powerful elements of the Democrats' political base. "But there has to be a distinction between supporting the rights of unions and supporting their every demand," Mr. Gordon notes.

After all, progressives are supposed to "think big," and care about the less fortunate in our society. If they give up on that philosophy to serve the greed of a powerful interest group, they will continue to lose their once-dominant edge as the party of education. That will only play into the hands of Republicans, Mr. Gordon warns, and ultimately hurt America's children.

Edward Achorn is The Journal's deputy editorial-pages editor. His e-mail address is eachorn [at] projo.com.