- He was going to be the 'education' president, and during
the campaign in 2000 he hugged kids from coast to coast, crowing about
the education miracle in Texas and promising to spread the Texas model
nationwide.
-
- He said he was a different kind of Republican, a man
of honor and compassion who would look out for the kids.
-
- It was all smoke, of course: photo-ops in a cynical
campaign. You knew it was smoke when the "compassionate" George
W. Bush put Dick Cheney on the ticket, a former congressman who had voted
against funding for Head Start, against subsidizing school lunches and
against federal aid for college students.
-
- In other words, against kids.
-
- Next week the Senate will take up the education budget
proposed for next year by the White House and Senate Republicans. From
the perspective of those who are pro-children, it's loaded with bad news.
Not only does the bill fall far short of the photo-op promises Mr. Bush
made to provide funding for programs to improve public education, but it
would actually cut $200 million from the president's very own (and relentlessly
touted) No Child Left Behind Act.
-
- We're talking about a real cut: $200 million less than
is being spent on this already underfunded initiative.
-
- The proposed cuts, according to Congressional officials
who have studied the budget proposal, would eliminate a high school dropout
prevention program, would prevent more than 32,000 children with limited
proficiency in English from participating in federally supported English
instruction programs, would drastically cut high school equivalency and
college assistance for migrant children, and would end the Thurgood Marshall
Scholarship program.
-
- The proposal would also cut more than 20,000 teachers
from professional training programs, despite Mr. Bush's promise that teachers
would "get the training they need to raise educational standards."
-
- And it would completely eliminate training for teachers
in computer technology.
-
- Among those who are steaming over the proposal is Senator
Edward Kennedy, one of a number of Democrats who gave the president the
kind of good-faith, high-profile, bipartisan support that was crucial to
the passage of No Child Left Behind.
-
- Here is what Senator Kennedy will say on the Senate floor
next week:
-
- "The bill before us contains harsh and unacceptable
cuts to education that will hurt families, students, schools and teachers
throughout the country. The president and Congress promised to reform and
improve public education . . . but if we pass the legislation before us
as is, the message again to parents and teachers and schools will be, `You're
on your own.' "
-
- Senator Kennedy also plans to stress that the president
is prone to making promises that are never kept: "A pattern is emerging.
Each year the president picks a large area to work in a bipartisan fashion
and promise compassion and help. In the past that area has been education.
This year, it is the global AIDS crisis, and we hope that the promised
support will happen. But on education, the promises made consistently have
been broken."
-
- It's hard to believe the president ever intended to adequately
fund the No Child Left Behind Act. Mr. Bush fights ferociously for the
things he really cares about: enormous tax cuts for the wealthy, for example,
or launching a war against Iraq. He has never showed a similar passion
for improving the public schools. The administration tried to cut funding
for the No Child Left Behind Act less than two weeks after the president
signed it into law.
-
- The tax cuts and the ever-increasing costs of the war
are submerging the nation in a sea of red ink, and the hopes of millions
of school-age youngsters are sinking right along with it.
-
- As for the Texas education miracle, it's more smoke.
The largest and most frequently praised district, Houston, is being monitored
by the state after an audit showed that more than half of the 5,500 students
who left school in the 2000-2001 year, should have been counted as dropouts,
but were not.
-
- President Bush was apparently "serious" about
bringing the Texas model to the nation. He made the superintendent of the
Houston school district the nation's education secretary....
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