When Democrats are at their best, they are performing one job: reducing inequality and making American life more just. That’s what Franklin Roosevelt did with the New Deal and Lyndon Johnson tried to do with the war on poverty. That’s what Bill Clinton and Barack Obama did with their education reform policies. Both Clinton and Obama ran as education outsiders and change agents. In between those presidencies, Democrats worked with George W. Bush on the No Child Left Behind Act, which passed with a majority of 384-45 in the House and 91-8 in the Senate. No Child Left Behind was all about bringing accountability to America’s schools.

Because of those reform efforts, student achievement test scores in reading, math and most other academic subjects shot upward between the mid-1990s and about 2

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