1. “IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING? George W. Bush made education the centerpiece of the 2000 campaign. On January 24, 2001, Bush unveiled his education package. He called for an expanded effort across the nation to teach reading and math, annual testing, and -- if schools still failed -- money to help parents pay for private schools. The 28-page proposal amounted to the skeleton of a program that called for a $47.5 billion plan.

*High standards were set for math, reading, science, and history, and annual tests would be administered to monitor the reading and math work of third- through eighth-grade students. States would have three years to develop and implement the assessments.

*Programs would be instituted to make sure all students could read by third grade.

*An emphasis was placed on improving teacher quality by helping schools pay for teacher training programs and by overhauling certification programs to bring into the classroom teachers with nontraditional training.

*Funds were allocated for partnerships between local schools’ math and science departments and those in colleges and universities.

*An emphasis was placed on improving fluency in English by streamlining grants for bilingual education and basing them on performance.

*Funds were allocated for providing educational programs outside conventional public school formats.

*Money would be set aside for expanding technology in the classroom, targeting federal programs for buying and installing computers at rural schools and those serving large numbers of low-income students.

*Funds would be allocated for improving school safety and giving students “trapped in persistently dangerous schools” the option to transfer to other institutions.

Bush’s proposal invited a series of problems:

*It could lead to millions of children failing, since Bush based his plan on a single test given annually in grades three through eight.

*Financially sanctioned schools, which did not show quick improvement, could do further damage to children in public schools in impoverished areas.

*By the time students enter the third grade, when the Bush testing plan would begin, much would already have been determined about whether individual children would succeed or struggle academically. Consequently, Bush’s prposal came too late for most students. (Los Angeles Times, February 6, 2001)

New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg proposed a pilot program for which interested systems -- as many as 10 cities and three states -- could apply. The resolution provided for:

Vouchers for low-income children in schools that had been failing for three years. It allowed participating districts to set the vouchers’ value, holding out the chance that some students might get enough money to actually meet the cost of private tuition.

An outside evaluation of students’ performance and the effect on the public schools involved. It was aimed at helping some individual students trapped in failing public schools while also providing useful data to inform the long-running debate about vouchers’ potential effects. (New York Times, June 4, 2001)

In May 2001, the House offered its version of an education package, in Bush failed to obtain federally funded vouchers to help parents in failing public schools move their children to private schools. The House authorized funds for federal elementary and secondary education programs; increases in Title I programs for disadvantaged students; teacher recruitment, training, and hiring; and new school technology. Education programs targeted to English-learning students.

The bill mandated that states test students in reading and math every year in first through third grades. It required a second testing system to cross-check results from state to state. Low-performing schools, as defined by state standards, would be given money to help them improve. Those that failed to meet the requirements would be sanctioned. One such provision would require school districts to pay for transportation for students transferring to better public schools. Another would require the districts themselves to offer after-school tutoring. Ultimately, failing schools could be shut down and forced to reorganize. (Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2001)

In July, the Senate passed its education package. With the help of Republican Senator Jim Jeffords’ defection, the Senate blocked a voucher amendment which would have permitted low-income parents in 10 cities to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private and religious schools.

*It required annual testing to identify the most troubled schools and then hold those schools accountable if they fail to improve. The federal government would provide more money to the worst schools and offer parents a new set of options to help their children learn, including subsidized private tutoring.

*If after five years a school is still labeled as failing, it must change its staff, allow the state to take over the school, or move the school into a charter institution.

Major differences existed between the House and Senate proposals. The Senate asked for $41.8 billion on education for fiscal 2002 year, while the House’s goal was $24 billion. Bush, who claimed himself a friend of education, asked for only $19 billion. (New York Times, June 15, 2001)

In December 2001, Congress passed an education package that established the broadest federal testing requirements for elementary and middle schools. It also provided billions of dollars to help needy students learn basic skills, and it prescribed new options for those stuck in languishing schools. The Senate voted 87-to-10 and the House 381-to-41 in passing the legislation.

The measure gave states and school districts more freedom over how they would spend federal dollars.

*It required schools to raise student achievement, monitor teacher quality, and close the gap between poor and middle-class students -- and white and minority students.

*Beginning in the 2005-06 school year, schools would be required to test every student in grades three through eight in reading and math each year. For the first time, the scores would affect how much federal funding a school gets -- and how school officials could spend it.

*Schools with persistently low test scores would get extra federal funding, but low-achieving poor students could ask that part of a school's federal allotment be spent on tutoring or transportation to another public school.

*Schools would have 12 years to get all students reading and doing math proficiently, but could be given more time if they show steady progress.

*School districts would have to send annual “report cards” showing a school’s standardized test scores compared to others locally and statewide. The reports would also have to tell how many teachers are qualified to teach in their subjects. (New York Times, December 19, 2001)

2. THE FAILURE OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND. As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act in January 2002, thousands of schools across the country were labeled as unsuccessful, when test scores dropped two years in a row. The law stipulated that not only did the entire student body have to increase test scores, but also several subgroups – such as minorities and students who did poorly in English – also had to show signs of improvement. For example, 45 percent of California schools failed to improve test scores in their second year. Despite poorer test scores under the federal mandate, many of them were doing well by their own assessments.

Students were allowed to transfer from failing schools under the No Child Left Behind Act. Yet, a high percentage of students were not allowed to change schools because of tight budgets. (Time, September 22, 2003)

On June 10, 2003, Bush declared, “We’re making good progress in terms of the implementation of our accountability systems. This morning, Secretary Paige has approved the plans of 17 more states, bringing us to a total of 100 percent of the accountability plans in place.” Bush added, “Every state, plus Puerto Rico and the District, are now complying with the No Child Left Behind Act after one year.” (White House Press Release)

According to the GAO, at the time of Bush’s announcement only 11 state plans met all NCLB requirements. One year later, 24 states still had not received full approval. (www.gao.gov, September 2004)

The Bush administration underfunded No Child Left Behind by $27 billion. As a result, millions of children across the country did not receive services they had been promised. These included additional in-class instruction, critical services such as after-school programs, and better teacher quality. (Committee on Education and the Workforce, September 24, 2004)

The GOP-controlled Senate education committee eliminated a high school dropout prevention program which would prevent more than 32,000 children with limited proficiency in English from participating in federally supported English instruction programs. It drastically cut high school equivalency and college assistance for migrant children and ended the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship program. (New York Times, August 22, 2003)

The proposal cut more than 20,000 teachers from professional training program despite Bush’s promise that teachers would “get the training they need to raise educational standards.” It also would completely eliminate training for teachers in computer technology.

While the GOP was busy slashing funding for programs, many of the country’s 50 million students began the 2003-04 school year worse off than they had been in previous years. Some schools asked families to contribute basic supplies like paper, pencils, and even soap. Others charged students steep fees to join athletic teams. Worst of all, teacher layoffs increased class sizes and jeopardized enrichment programs that had been shown to improve student performance. (New York Times, August 31, 2003)

The Bush Fiscal 2004 budget called for a drastic reduction in numerous education programs:

The termination of programs that currently received over $1.5 billion in federal education assistance.

Major reductions in Vocational Education of over $300 million or 23 percent.

A cut in the total Impact Aid funding -- federal assistance to school districts that serve children from military bases -- by $125 million or 11 percent.

The reduction in funds as promised under the No Child Left Behind Act. $18.5 billion was set aside for Title I programs, but the Bush budget proposed only $12.3 billion. Deficit-plagued states and school districts were be required to pay for the standards-raising and testing imposed on them by the federal government.

A shortfall of $11 billion for “full funding” for special education state grants to help schools cover special education costs. The federal government promised to pay 40 percent of the costs of this program but actually came up with only 17 percent of the money. The states had to pay the rest.

A reduction of $400 million or 40 percent in funding for the 21st century after school center program. (Center for American Progress, December 16, 2003)

According to a study by the California Teachers Association, 26,000 of the nation’s 93,000 public schools in 2003 “failed to make adequate yearly process.” That was partially due to the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act which penalized schools with diverse student populations. Bilingual education was hardest hit by No Child Left Behind. (New York Times, January 2, 2004)

As a result of lower test scores, many districts were forced to spend “large sums of money to remedy shortcomings in such schools.” The study showed that failing “schools were designated not because tests had shown their overall achievement levels to be faltering, but because a single student group had fallen short of a target. As a result, the chances that a school would be designated as failing increased in proportion to the number of demographic groups served by the school.” (New York Times, January 2, 2004)

No Child Left Behind required that every student be proficient in reading and math by the 2013-14 school year. If schools did not make “adequate yearly progress” toward that goal, they risked expensive consequences. Some might be forced to pay for their students to attend higher-performing schools elsewhere, while others would be forced to draw up detailed plans to improve. (New York Times, January 2, 2004)

According to the No Child Left Behind Act, it was not enough for 70 percent of students to pass the test. The federal law required that everyone -- including minorities, students from low-income homes, and those with special needs -- meet the same annual goals.

The Fiscal 2004 education budget was $7.2 billion dollars short of targets. Yet, the No Child Left Behind Act promised that schools would receive “adequate funding and attention” without specifying the sacrifices that would be made along the way. By the end of 2003, 70 education programs were cut nationwide because of inadequate funding. (New York Times, January 2, 2004)

About 28 percent of schools nationwide failed to meet the targets in 2003, triggering a mandatory set of costly remedial measures, such as supplemental tuition services and offers to move children to different schools if space is available. (Washington Post, February 20, 2004)

Pennsylvania: In 2003, the state filed suit contending that, in enforcing the No Child Left Behind Act, the city of Reading’s efforts to educate thousands of immigrants required the city to offer tutoring and other services for which there was no money. New York Times, January 2, 2004)

Virginia: The GOP-controlled House of Delegates called the No Child Left Behind Act an unfunded mandate that threatened to undermine the state’s own efforts to improve students’ performance. By a vote of 98 to 1, the House passed a resolution calling on Congress to exempt states like Virginia from the program’s requirements.

Ohio: An Ohio state-commissioned study by Republicans found the federal government had significantly underfunded No Child Left Behind.

North Dakota: A resolution in the Republican-controlled House and Senate stated the cost to states of implementing the No Child Left Behind Act was excessively high.

Utah: The GOP-controlled legislature considered a bill to forgo the federal money and opt out of the program entirely.

Connecticut: Three school districts rejected federal money rather than comply with the federal bureaucracy.

Vermont: Several districts shifted federal poverty money away from schools to shield them from sanctions. New York Times, January 2, 2004)

HEAD START. Bush campaigned to revise the Head Start program which, educators claimed, had operated successfully since its inception in the mid-1960s. He hoped to move Head Start alongside Even Start in the Department of Education. However, a national study showed that Even Start children had only small gains in language and readiness skills. Additionally, the students’ parents had only small gains in their own reading skills. (New York Times, December 23, 2000)

Most experts agreed that Head Start prepared needy kids for school. A government study in 2001 showed that Head Start improved the children’s vocabulary and writing skills and narrowed the gap between them and more affluent youngsters. (Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2004)

A 2003 study in San Bernardino County found that kindergarten students, who had gone through Head Start, scored 9 percent better in literacy than students from similar backgrounds that had not participated in the program. They were also 9.6 percent better in language skills and 7.3 percent better in math skills. And they were absent from school 4.5 fewer days than their peers who had not gone through the program. Other research showed that Head Start children wee less likely to need special education services, less likely to repeat grades, and more likely to graduate from high school. (Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2004)

Bush spoke of moving Head Start alongside Even Start in the Department of Education. However, a national study showed that Even Start children had only small gains in language and readiness skills. Additionally, the students’ parents had only small gains in their own reading skills. (New York Times, December 23, 2000)

Advocates of the program accused Bush of endangering the Head Start program. They objected to the decentralization of Head Start, since most states were running budget deficits. They insisted that states could not fund Head Start as well as other pre-school programs. Others objected to Bush’s directive to administer the nation’s first nation-wide tests to 4-year olds, in order to track each child’s progress and the effectiveness of each Head Start program. (Chicago Tribune, September 30, 2003)

Bush hoped to revise Head Start as a program for preschool children and their families living below or near the federal poverty line. However, he ran into a roadblock when he challenged the hierarchy of priorities that had guided Head Start for 36 years. Most of the nation’s 16,000 Head Start centers ranked the availability of free medical care, counseling, meals, and even extended play time as high as, if not higher than, helping children prepare to read. Bush hoped to reverse that philosophy.

Bush sought to introduce the teaching of phonics the central focus in Head Start centers. However, a 2000 study by the Westat Corporation, a private research company, showed Head Start succeeded in helping children develop literacy and numeracy skills. The study showed that graduates had solid gains in vocabulary and other pre-reading skills, compared with children from similar backgrounds who had not had the Head Start experience, and they were more ready for school.

In January 2003, Bush offered another proposal on changing the Head Start program. He sought to shift Head Start's focus from nurturing children’s social and emotional development to emphasizing early literacy. Critics charged that it amounted to a high-stakes test for preschoolers that would yield little useful information, because children were too young to be evaluated with a standardized exam.

Bush sought to implement an unprecedented annual assessment of the 908,000 4-year-olds in Head Start programs nationwide in an effort to determine how much the children were learning in the government-funded preschool program for the poor. That would help determine where to target resources. (Washington Post, January 17, 2003)

A GOP-sponsored House bill allowed for block grants in eight states, allowing them to manage Head Start programs within their borders as pilot projects. Such grants could remove both the local control so integral to the program and the federal oversight that was key to its success. (Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2004)

The legislation did not require that state demonstration programs follow the federal Head Start program performance standards that covered student-teacher ratios and parent involvement as well as teacher training, health screening, and other aspects of the program. Instead, the House bill was vague on which services state-run Head Starts should provide. (Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2004)

However, block grants had a problematic history. For example, the 1996 welfare law placed money to support child-care programs for mothers trying to return to the workforce into block grants under the program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. In 2003, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington reported that more than 35 states had made cuts in programs financed by these funds. (Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2004)

3. CUTTING SPENDING FOR EDUCATION. Bush’s $2.24 trillion budget for Fiscal 2005 included severe cuts for education. The administration slashed $1.5 billion out of the Department of Education -- virtually eliminating previous small increases. The plan also included cutting $177 million out of Head Start. (White House News Release, May 11, 2004)

The administration cut funding for Head Start and No Child Left Behind, and it froze Pell grants, the nation’s largest student assistance program, by $270 million dollars. This affected more than 84,000 college students nationwide. (Orbis: A Unifying Voice, January 24, 2004)

Thirty-eight of the 65 government programs eliminated were related to education. Funds for No Child Left Behind were cut by more than $9 billion. Other cuts were made for alcohol abuse, dropout prevention, school counselors, smaller learning communities, school reform, and school leadership. $247 million was eliminated for the Even Start family literacy program. Funds were slashed for the Eisenhower regional math and science consortiums and the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Math and Science Education.

In the State of the Union, Bush claimed he wanted “larger Pell Grants for students who prepare for college with demanding courses in high school.” But most of that was eliminated. In 1976, the Pell Grants covered about half of the cost of tuition, room, and board at a public college. By 2004, the grants covered only about 20 percent of average public-college costs, and even less of private-college expenses.

Bush administration tried to eliminate 84,000 students from the Pell program by using a controversial new formula to calculate eligibility. While Bush proposed an additional $1,000-a-year grant to low-income students, he asked for only $33 million, which was enough for just 33,000 of the nation’s 15.8 million college students. (The Enquirer, October 10, 2003; Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2004)

Despite underfunding his landmark education initiative by $9.4 billion in 2005, Bush proposed a $1.5 billion federal initiative for 2006 to extend No Child Left Behind testing requirements to America’s high schools. Bush called for a mandatory battery of reading and math tests in the ninth, 10th and 11th grades.

4.THE BUSH FAMILY PROFITS FROM EDUCATION. A company owned by Neil Bush and his parents -- Ignite! Learning -- landed a windfall from his brother’s No Child Left Behind Act. At least 13 United States school districts used federal funds available through the legislation. (Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2006) George W. Bush’s parents joined Neil as Ignite investors in 1999. By 2003, Neil Bush had raised about $23 million from more than a dozen outside investors, including Mohammed Al Saddah, the head of a Kuwaiti company, and Winston Wong, the head of a Chinese computer firm. He also received financial backing from Russian fugitive business tycoon Boris Berezovsky and Berezovsky’s partner Badri Patarkatsishvili. (Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2006) Barbara Bush enthusiastically supported Ignite. In January 2004, she and Neil Bush were guests of honor at a $1,000-atable fundraiser in Oklahoma City organized by a foundation supporting the Western Heights School District. Proceeds were earmarked for the purchase of Ignite products. (Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2006) The law provided federal funds to help school districts better serve disadvantaged students and improve their performance, especially in reading and math. But Ignite did not offer reading instruction, and its math program was not available until 2007. (Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2006) Most of Ignite’s business was obtained through sole-source contracts without competitive bidding. Neil Bush was directly involved in marketing the product. In addition to federal or state funds, foundations and corporations helped buy Ignite products. (Los Angeles Times, October 22, 2006)