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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (166260)	7/31/2001 1:05:06 AM
From: puborectalis	Respond to of 769667

Education reform could be key as Bush's initiatives bog down By KRISTEN MACK Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- White House officials have conceded that education reform legislation, one of President Bush's top priorities, will not make it to his desk this week as he had wanted. The measure, which sailed through the House but took some wrangling to get out of the Senate, has yet to emerge from a conference committee, where negotiators from both chambers are working out their differences. "We're near passage and when we come back from recess we expect that to be addressed quickly," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Monday. That came three weeks after Bush -- with his legislative program bogging down in Congress -- urged lawmakers to get the education bill to the White House before leaving for their monthlong August recess. Final passage of the measure would have given Bush a much-needed boost before he heads for vacation to his Crawford ranch, but the education reforms are among several items on his agenda that stalled in Congress. After a contentious battle in the House over a weakened version of his faith-based initiatives, Senate Democrats have shown no sign of taking up the president's religious charities legislation. Also, a patients bill of rights hit a wall in the House last week when no agreement was reached on the president's effort to limit lawsuits against managed care providers. Key to the outcome on these issues is a handful of Republican moderates who are proving to be less reliable to the conservative president than they were earlier in the year. "Bush needs an issue like education to bring him back to political center," said Amy Wilkins, a policy analyst at the Education Trust, a group that lobbies for poor school districts. The major sticking points on the education reform package include how to determine whether a school is not performing up to standard. Also on the table are whether several education programs should be consolidated and how much the reforms will cost. Both the House and Senate bills require annual state tests in reading and math for every child in the third through eighth grades, plus once in high school. But the bills differ on how to determine when a school is failing to make adequate yearly progress. After five consecutive years of failing test scores, a school would be required to reopen as a public charter school, replace all or most of its staff or turn over operation to the state. Some experts caution that tougher accountability measures will create an incentive for states to lower standards so more students can meet them. A recent study of test data from Texas and North Carolina shows that roughly 96 percent of schools in both states would have failed to achieve the House and Senate's definition of adequate yearly progress at least once between 1994 and 1999. In Texas, 78 percent of schools rated exemplary in 1998 would be labeled failing by congressional standards, said Thomas Kane, one of the study's authors and a professor of policy studies and economics at UCLA. The study suggests that no serious consequences be attached to one year of test score data because single years are unreliable. It recommends that any definition of adequate yearly progress be based on data over several years. "The (method) that's been proposed would end up sanctioning a large percentage of American schools," Kane said. "It's too arbitrary." Another major sticking point of House-Senate talks is the cost of the education reforms. The Senate bill authorizes $31.7 billion for elementary and secondary education in 2002. The House bill authorizes $22.9 billion. Bush wants to cut costs, in part, by consolidating elementary and secondary education programs. While the House bill would streamline the number of programs from 56 to 47, the Senate would expand them to 87. The Senate approved programs to address issues such as dropout prevention, summer enrichment, teacher and principal recruitment and school security. With the differences that remain, it is likely that the school year will begin before districts and states can begin thinking about how to formally implement the bill. "This is a tough piece of legislation," said Sandy Kress, Bush's education adviser. "The president wants reform to be implemented as soon as possible. We want (Congress) to proceed deliberately and wisely, but quickly."