This page has not been reluctant to criticize many of President Barack Obama's policies. But we take a back seat to no one in our admiration for his courage and determination to protect our children in an area where both parties have been failing them for decades — our flabby public schools.

What distinguishes Obama on education is that he isn't afraid to tell the truth and push for the unpopular steps that are necessary to really fix the problem. The president and his relentlessly honest point man, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, say what anybody knows who's willing to look objectively at what children need and what our schools are giving them: Public education in this country falls far short.

They peek behind the curtain that hides the educational Wizard of Oz and realize that machinations that declare children and schools to be proficient when they aren't are just a sham.

They know that the most important ingredient of great education is great teachers. And we won't get to the place where enough children have great teachers until we find ways to attract great people, bring out their best and hold them accountable.

They recognize that the millions of children trapped in schools that fail them deserve another choice, in the form of quality charter schools.

And when they get flak from educational apologists, they don't back down. Teachers' groups can't say anything nice about Obama and education. That says he's rattling some bureaucratic strongholds, and that can only be a step in the right direction.

Big steps in a different direction are what we have to take. Obama is right: Spending more on what we've been doing will only get us more of the same, and that's not good enough.

The visible symbol of the president's policies is the Race to the Top program. Instead of giving states more money to do more of the same, it offers an incentive: big dollars if you adopt the reforms necessary to get different results. Among those reforms is holding school systems and teachers accountable for doing their jobs. That requires trying teacher evaluation to student achievement, something that's obvious but that most states (including Virginia) have refused to do. And weeding out ineffectual teachers (again, an action rare across the nation and in Virginia). And incentivizing excellence by tying teacher pay to performance. And fixing the worst schools or offering children an alternative.

Unfortunately for Virginians, the governor and state Board of Education have elected not to Race to the Top. Virginia's initial proposal looked more like Mosey to the Middle, and then it dropped out rather than give up its comfortable delusions. The state and local school boards have been eager to paint a happy picture of the condition of public education, and communities play along. Employers, colleges and objective observers knows better — there are some great schools in Virginia, and some terrible schools that are allowed to go on victimizing children, and many, many schools that are nowhere near as good as they can and should be.

On this, Obama is absolutely right about what the nation needs. Our children's performance in reading and math — and in the sciences and social studies — is woefully behind children in many of the nations that are eating our lunch in the global economic race. For poor and minority children especially, a better education offers the best hope of improving their lives, and through them our nation's prospects.

The people who should be supporting the president — Democratic lawmakers, civil rights groups and teachers' groups — are screaming bloody murder. That's a sign that his policies threaten to make real, radical changes. The kind we need.