See this Wall Street Journal editorial which reports the National Education Association lining up on one side of the No Child Left Behind program of school accountability and several black and Chicano groups lining up on the other. More specifically, the civil rights organizations favor school accountability and, not surprisingly, the teachers' union opposes it.
Teachers and minorities constitute two of the four major categories of support for Democrats, labor and trial lawyers being the other two. This issue has to make Democratic legislators nervous, with whom do you side? Whatever you choose irritates a major group of supporters.
Metaphors featuring rocks and nearby hard places come to mind.
