After the 2000 presidential election during which George W. Bush erased the enormous advantage Democratic nominees had enjoyed on education by relentlessly decrying the "soft bigotry of low expectations," the president worked with Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.) and Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) to assemble a bill that ultimately sailed through both houses of Congress by a margin of 381 to 41 in the House and 87 to 10 in the Senate. That bill, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), is due for reauthorization this year, and the administration and the Democratic chairs of both the House and Senate education committees have declared its reauthorization a priority. Whether the bipartisan triumph achieved with the original passage of NCLB can be repeated depends on how Congress understands public opinion on the act. (Contains 24 endnotes.) [This inaugural issue is the first in a new series of essays devoted to key issues in education policy.]