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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (33846)	3/11/2004 2:09:46 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793955

Bush got "rolled" on the "Left Behind" bill. Teddy gave them a lot of money, which the Unions are sucking up in salary increases, at the same time that they are using the "salami" approach to lower the requirements. You just can't trust the Educational establishment on this issue. A Genuine 'Education President' By George F. Will Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A27 Some critics of President Bush's policy regarding elementary and secondary education have an alternative. It is: Let's leave lots of children behind. The No Child Left Behind Act was passed overwhelmingly by the House (381-41) and Senate (87-10), but now liberals see that NCLB expresses essentials of Bush's conservatism. Democratic presidential candidates have denounced it as a "federal intrusion" in state and local affairs -- everyone knows how much liberals dislike such intrusions. Howard Dean, that perfect indicator of liberal passions, seemed to think that if tests reveal that many schools are failing their children, then drastic changes must be made to the . . . tests. Yes, the tests can be improved, and schools should have somewhat more latitude regarding disabled students and those whose first language is not English. But many complaints about NCLB are not about marginal or easily adjustable matters. Teachers unions recoil from accountability and resent evidence that all is not well, or that whatever is wrong cannot be cured by increased funding of current practices. But per-pupil spending, adjusted for inflation, is three times what it was 40 years ago, and the pupil-teacher ratio is 40 percent lower, yet reading scores are essentially unchanged. Middle-class parents, who are often mistakenly complacent about the quality of their children's schools, dislike having their complacency disturbed. Twenty states denounce NCLB as, among other things, an "unfunded mandate" because they will need to spend money to rectify revealed shortcomings. But as they correctly insist, primary and secondary education -- and their shortcomings -- are primarily their responsibility: Federal money is just 8 percent of total spending on kindergarten through 12th grade. Besides, they can escape the NCLB intrusion if they are willing to forgo the federal intrusion they covet -- $24.3 billion that flows from Washington for NCLB. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, says that since the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1994, states have been required to set standards and begin testing. But only 11 states were in compliance by 2001. Boehner says that between 1995 and 2001, whenever states said the requirement was too burdensome, Bill Clinton -- who billed himself as a "real education president" but actually was the teachers unions' president, which is different -- gave them waivers. Twenty-eight percent of the nation's public schools (about 26,000 of 91,400) have been found not to have made "adequate yearly progress." To those who say it is excessive to require 100 percent of a school's students to reach certain goals, Boehner responds: What number would you substitute? Ninety-five? "That means you can throw 5 percent of the children overboard." His is the right spirit, but perhaps a, say, 95 percent requirement would allow reasonable latitude. There would, however, be pressure to lower it to 85 percent, on the way to . . . Rest at washingtonpost.com