Daily News

Judge Howard Manning recently told education leaders and legislators that teachers in the classroom aren’t getting the job done when it comes to educating poor kids in struggling schools.

Manning, who for several years has been overseeing a lawsuit challenging disparities in North Carolina public schools, went on to tell an education panel that "instructional leadership" is lacking.

"The adults are failing the children," Manning said.

Gov. Mike Easley responded that the criticism was too harsh, that judging results based on standardized tests that had been reconfigured wasn’t fair.

Liberal commentators chimed in that the fault isn’t in the classroom, but in the home, that schools are being asked to solve social problems and undo the disadvantages of poverty.

I wonder if any of them can step back and see how tired this debate sounds.

Obviously, the comments of all three contain some grain of truth.