Of late, Democrat Claire McCaskill has been running for the U.S. Senate with a message criticizing Republican education policies. She says the federal No Child Left Behind law requires some needed accountability but is too complicated and, above all, is under-funded by some $40 billion-plus.

This is a Democrat line carefully designed to give just enough faint praise to the push for better public school performance while targeting Republicans for making a botch of their effort.

It won’t work. McCaskill’s line will appeal to mainline Democrats, but she is running in a general election full of voters who don’t believe the federal government should spend more money for education.

Indeed, the very idea education is under-funded at any level is suspect. In the worst-performing school districts, per-pupil spending is at record highs. As this funding has been increasing at faster rates, student performance has remained low. Some of the best reports come from districts with the lowest per-pupil funding. Schools require adequate funding, but how much is enough? "More is better" is an argument with a certain amount of credibility, but not as criticism aimed exclusively at Republicans.

Variable student achievement results mainly from demographic differences beyond the control of local school districts. However, when No Child Left Behind was passed, everyone was ready for more accountability and everyone also was ready to discount the idea funding increases should be the first line of attack.

Ironically, McCaskill’s Republican opponent, incumbent Jim Talent, threatens to steal the issue by adopting the emerging argument of U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings in favor of measuring student progress, not momentary student achievement. Finally, Spellings uses the unassailable argument educators should be recognized as much for helping underachievers make extraordinary progress as helping high achievers remain competent.

Measuring progress - often called a "value added" approach - is well known but stubbornly opposed by school officials and teacher unions for the very reason it imposes the most telling kind of accountability, not obscured by the blessing or curse of demographic chance.

McCaskill and the Democrats have a good chance of making gains against Republicans in this off-year election. If they adopt positions mainly tailored to partisan criticism, they will miss valuable chances to demonstrate their own positive imagination. That’s what thoughtful swing voters want to hear, and let us pray these are the kind of voters who will determine November’s outcome.

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

- Helen Keller (1880-1968), writer and lecturer