NCLB: in trouble

Note: in the important story below, Mr. Bush meets with "Civil Rights leaders" as an important support for NCLB. What Mr. Bush has done all along is to select a few "Civil Rights leaders" who support his viewpoints. Notably, the Education Trust claims to be a Civil Rights organization.
Mr.Bush and his team made the same effort in trying to pass immigration reform, inviting a very select group of "civil rights leaders" to work with him. The facts are there are a number of groups funded by corporations and beholding to conservative think tanks who claim to be "civil rights" leaders. This claim should always be questioned. Are they really civil rights leaders?
Duane Campbell

October 10, 2007
Bush Prodding Congress to Reauthorize His Education Law

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG and DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — With his domestic agenda in tatters, President Bush tried Tuesday to prod Congress into reauthorizing his biggest domestic achievement, the 2001 No Child Left Behind education law. But lawmakers have yet to come to terms on the legislation, and prospects for a deal this year appear dim.

Mr. Bush invited civil rights leaders, who are among the bill’s staunchest backers, to a meeting in the White House Roosevelt Room on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the prospects for renewal. Then, in a bit of theater designed to pressure lawmakers — especially Democrats, for whom civil rights advocates are a core constituency — the president took his guests into the Rose Garden, where he issued a public call for Congress to act.

“We don’t necessarily agree on every issue, but we do agree that education is a basic civil right,” Mr. Bush said, adding that the nation “has reached a defining moment in our struggle to secure a good education for every child.”

It was the second time in as many weeks that Mr. Bush has used his presidential platform to draw attention to the education bill, an intensifying effort that suggests he is concerned that his signature domestic achievement could come undone before his term is out.

The bill would remain in effect even if it is not renewed, but the administration is seeking changes to it, and some opponents would like to see it thoroughly revamped. If Congress reauthorizes the bill with its basic components intact, it would be a welcome, and rare, legislative victory for Mr. Bush on Capitol Hill, one that could help cement his legacy in education policy, an issue he has cared about since he was governor of Texas.

The president wants a bill by the end of the year, but administration officials do not sound entirely confident. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said after the Rose Garden ceremony that she was “cautiously optimistic.”

At least one of the civil rights leaders in attendance, Wade Henderson, said he feared that the reauthorization effort could collapse amid challenges from Republicans, in much the same way that the president’s immigration proposal was brought down by his own party. Mr. Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said Mr. Bush seemed determined to see the bill through.

“He committed to using his personal capital to see to it that the bill is reauthorized this year,” Mr. Henderson said. “This is his signature achievement, and I think he wants to extend that.”

But as with the immigration bill, there are questions on how far the president’s capital can take him. Mr. Bush is in the thick of a series of veto fights with Congressional Democrats, many of whom accuse the administration of failing to finance the original education measure fully. At the same time, the bill faces challenges from some Republicans, who say it tramples on local control of schools.

“Every day that goes by, the likelihood becomes less that they’ll be able to get a bill passed this year,” said Jack Jennings, a former general counsel for the House education committee and president of the Center on Education Policy, a nonprofit group that advises many states on the federal education law.

First passed in 2001, No Child Left Behind created new, specific standards for student achievement, demanding that all schools test students in Grades 3 to 8 in reading and math every year, with the goal of having all students demonstrate proficiency in those subjects by 2014. Mr. Bush said Tuesday that he would not “compromise on the basic principle” that every child must read and do math at or above grade level.

Ms. Spellings said: “It’s a strong law, a hawkish law and a good law. We can make it better, but we don’t need to risk making it worse.”

House Democrats have been working much of the year to draw up legislation to renew the law, but have yet to produce a bill. A “discussion draft” has come under attack from backers and opponents of the original measure.

In the Senate, the lead Democratic sponsor of the original bill, Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, plans to introduce legislation to renew it by the end of the month. On Tuesday, Mr. Kennedy chided the White House for making the reauthorization effort “far more difficult by its failure to fully fund and implement it.”

Civil rights advocates said they used Tuesday’s meeting to press Mr. Bush to support substantial increases in federal spending on No Child Left Behind, saying the money was needed to help schools meet the law’s demands and to develop better, more sophisticated ways to measure student progress.


Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
Privacy Policy