Effort by Bush on
Education Hits Obstacles
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
• NY Times • Published: August 18, 2004
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - At Madison Park Elementary, a
high-poverty school whose students have failed to make
enough progress year after year, the momentous consequences
threatened in President
Bush's landmark education law, No Child Left Behind, should
come crashing down any month now.
At this stage of disrepair, after improvement plans and
other "corrective actions" have failed to raise test scores
enough, the law calls for a wholesale restructuring of
Madison Park and similar public schools, the educational
equivalent of a hostile takeover, with the possible
elimination of principals and teachers and the installation
of new management.
But Michigan has another idea.
Instead of the Bush administration's formula, Thomas D.
Watkins Jr., the state superintendent, will try something
less drastic: dispatching coaches to advise teachers and
principals, importing new curriculums and monitoring school
progress. Mr. Watkins likens state takeover of troubled
schools to a dog chasing a bus. "What do you do with it once
you get it?" he asked.
But as events in Michigan and many other states suggest,
all is not going as planned.
Four years ago, No Child Left Behind served as candidate
George W. Bush's banner domestic issue, showcasing his claim
to "compassionate conservatism." At campaign stops, Mr. Bush
attacked the "soft bigotry of low expectations" in public
schools, and once in office, No Child Left Behind became his
legislative initiative. It aimed for nothing less than
ending the achievement gap between whites and minorities, by
threatening public schools with dire punishments unless they
improved the academic performance of all students. The law
is intended to ratchet up the quality of teachers at
high-poverty schools, steadily raise student achievement in
reading, math and science, and use student test scores to
dictate whether a school should survive. It also promises
students in underperforming schools a way out, through
transfer to better schools or private tutoring.
Faced with the challenge of raising all students to
academic proficiency by 2014, however, some states simply
lowered their standards, while many others came up with
statistical devices to exclude whole groups of children from
the law's umbrella.
Critics and supporters alike agree that since President
Bush signed No Child Left Behind in January 2002, the law
has imposed deep, undeniable changes on America's public
education.
Margaret Spellings, a White House domestic policy
adviser and an architect of the law, says that No Child Left
Behind is already showing results. "The trend is absolutely
in the right direction," she said.
Even some of those who are uneasy with the provisions of
the law applaud its ambition. Jack Jennings, the director of
the nonprofit Center on Education Policy, calls No Child
Left Behind "a bushel of trouble" for schools, but
nevertheless credits it with training a spotlight on the
achievement gap between middle-class and disadvantaged
children.
"There will be greater results under this law than any
previous education law, because the time lines are so short
and the demands so great, and the schools will respond," Mr.
Jennings said. "The question is, will this emphasis on
testing really better educate kids, or is it an artificial
thing?"
Critics contend the law gives schools dozens of ways to
fail, but does little to help them tackle the causes of low
achievement among poor, minority and disabled children.
Others complain that the law's reliance on standardized
tests is unsound, that its strict rules conflict with
existing state efforts and that its remedies for struggling
schools are largely punitive. As a result, in the two and
half years since Mr. Bush signed No Child Left Behind into
law, a political backlash has curtailed its reach.
Though the law passed with strong bipartisan support,
Democrats, civic groups and teachers' unions complain that
federal spending consistently falls short of the amounts
authorized when they signed on - an accusation that
Republicans reject, saying that spending on the nation's
poorest schools has risen by more than 50 percent on Mr.
Bush's watch.
Earlier this year, opposition to the new law spread to
the right, as Republican lawmakers in a dozen or so states
passed anti-No Child Left Behind resolutions. The discontent
first boiled over in Utah, where the House attacked the law
as an infringement of states' rights. A team of federal
officials turned up in Salt Lake, reminding Republicans that
the state stood to lose $100 million in federal education
aid if they followed through, lawmakers recalled.
"For a state the size of Utah, that's a hard hit," said
Kory M. Holdaway, a Republican legislator.
|