Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards rolled out a program for reforming primary education in the United States on Friday, proposing to pay teachers up to $15,000 more in high poverty areas and initiating universal preschool. Edwards detailed the proposals, which also include longer school years and overhauling the No Child Left Behind education law, in a speech at Brody Middle School in Des Moines.

He called the federal law enacted by the Bush administration “a case study in what’s broken in Washington, D.C.” and said it needs to be radically reformed, to which he received the largest applause from a crowd of 300, largely supporters and school staff, who filled the school auditorium.

“It’s a needlessly punitive arbitrary harsh approach to a genuine need of our schools,” he said.

Rather than requiring students to take standardized tests, Edwards said assessments that measure higher-order thinking skills must be developed, including open-ended essays, oral examinations, projects and experiments.

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