Question Number Two: In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Sen. John Kerry criticized the Bush administration on domestic policy, being especially critical of Bush on issues such as veterans, Medicare, and education. Bush counterattacked by declaring that he had "delivered" in all these areas. Whom do you find more persuasive? Has or hasn't Bush "delivered"?

Since I am a teacher, a university professor, I am going to focus on education. Team Kerry/Edwards, the Democratic National Committee, and the National Education Association are against No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and want to repeal the legislation. Kerry, of course, voted for NCLB before he decided against it: He is nothing if not consistent in his inconsistency. The provisions of NCLB are targeted to assessment and accountability. No more football coaches teaching geometry, no more drama teachers in economics.

Educators today in the K-12 system are willing to assess their programs, but they want to set their own standards and then determine themselves if they have met the criteria they developed. They despise standardized tests such as the ACT or SAT because they are reliable indicators of student performance, unlike inflated grades today. The average high school GPA is a 3.0 or higher, but that is not reflected in the ACT score.

What are the dastardly NCLB requirements liberals so despise _ and business school professors, along with those in hard sciences such as biology, physics, and computer science are cheering? They are as follows:

Highly Qualified Teachers: To be deemed highly qualified, teachers must have: 1) a bachelor's degree, 2) full state certification or licensure, and 3) prove that they know each subject they teach (now, how unfair is that?).

States must measure the extent to which all students have highly qualified teachers, particularly minority and disadvantaged students and have a plan as to how to meet the goals of all children having highly qualified teachers.

Demonstration of Competency: Teachers (in middle and high school) must prove that they know the subject they teach Imagine! English teachers who can read and write! Math teachers who can actually count!

President Bush has provided more funding for K-12 education than any other administration. The 2005 budget includes more increases in the budget, a total of $37 billion dollars (up from about $25 billion) -- even though there is no evidence that simply increasing spending on education provides results.

There must be accountability and assessment. They are whining about a lack of funding while overall Department of Education funding by has increased 36 percent, from $42.2 billion to $57.3 billion. Funding for poor students has increased 52 percent. Funding for teacher recruiting and retention has increased 39 percent and funding for reading programs has increased from $286 million to $1.26 billion.

We spend untold billions on correcting the mass problems in K-12 and in remedial education for universities. If we can get them to do a better job in K-12, we will have more resources at the postsecondary level to train a skilled workforce to meet the challenges of a new century. Instead, we are spending time teaching children who have received 12 years of education the basics in math, reading and writing. What is wrong with this picture?

I really do not know how much more money they need to teach kids to read, write and count.

Two independent studies (Education Leaders Council; James Peyser, Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education, and Robert Costrell, chief economist in the Massachusetts Executive Office for Administration and Finance) have concluded that NCLB provides enough funding to cover the costs of implementation.

NCLB is the best thing to happen to education in America in 40 years, and all one need do to see the effectiveness of the legislation is to listen to the liberals and teachers' union members screaming about the "unfairness" of the requirements -- while watching the reading and math scores improve.

Anybody who doubts we are in need of a massive overhaul of the educational system in America need only go to their nearest university and ask for the demographic data on majors, especially those in science, computer science, and engineering. How many American students are enrolled? How many American minority students are enrolled? How many international students are enrolled? Why are so many international students studying engineering, chemistry, and computer science compared to American students? What does this mean for future domestic security? What does this mean for our children born, raised and educated here that they are not able to do the work, to understand the concepts it takes to become an engineer or physicist?

The decline of our public education system is the most insidious form of racism and bigotry because it deprives our children of their potential. When a child sits in the classroom for an academic year with a teacher who, maybe with the best of intentions, is not skilled for that course, that child is deprived of a year of learning and growth. When a child sits for year after year in a failing school with no way to move to another school and no hope of better teachers or learning environment, that child is deprived of hope.

As for Medicare, I only have one comment. President Clinton had eight years to provide seniors with some type of drug benefit with no results. The Democrats controlled the House and Senate for most of the last 25 years, when drug costs started steeply climbing, and never did anything. Team Kerry/Edwards apparently have a plan but have not revealed what their plan would require, other than to say they will allow importing drugs from Canada and overseas. Drugs from Mexico -- now there's a new concept.