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News :: Education : Elections & Legislation : Regime : Right Wing |
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Critics are Saying Education Dept. Favors Right Wing |
Current rating: 0 |
by Michael Dobbs
(No verified email address) |
05 Jan 2004
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School Privatization Pushed, report finds |
WASHINGTON -- When Arizona schools superintendent Lisa Graham Keegan and a group of predominantly conservative educators began the Education Leaders Council in 1995, their proclaimed goal was to upset an educational establishment long dominated by the Democrats and left-leaning teachers unions.
Nearly a decade later, Keegan and her allies have become the establishment -- and the left is crying foul.
People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group, recently released a report depicting Keegan's group as the center of "a network of right-wing foundations" that have received more than $77 million in U.S. Department of Education funds to promote their "school privatization" agenda. The report notes that a co-founder of the council, former Pennsylvania education secretary Eugene W. Hickok, is now the second-ranking official at the federal agency.
While there is a tradition of Republican and Democratic administrations rewarding allies, critics argue that the amount of money steered toward conservative educational groups by the Bush administration far exceeds the practices of the past.
"It's a farce," said Kathleen Lyons, spokeswoman for the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the country. "On the one hand, we have the Bush administration claiming that its education reforms are all scientifically based, and on the other hand we see the administration providing a grab bag of Santa gifts to conservative groups."
The People for the American Way report "exposes a stealth campaign by the administration to reward groups that support its private-school voucher agenda at the expense of strengthening public schools," said Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Senate education committee.
"Balderdash," said Education Undersecretary Hickok. If there were any favoritism, he said, it was "favoritism in the sense that we support those organizations that support No Child Left Behind," a law President Bush signed in January 2002 that intends to raise educational standards through high- stakes testing and better-qualified teachers.
"Welcome to the vast right-wing conspiracy," laughed Keegan, chief executive of the Education Leaders Council, who was a candidate for secretary of education after Bush was elected.
Education Department records show that the council received $13.5 million over the last two years for its "Following the Leaders" project, which develops computer programs to monitor implementation of the No Child Left Behind law. A further $45 million in grants has been awarded to groups closely associated with Keegan's organization, such as the National Council on Teacher Quality and the American Board for Certification of Teacher Excellence.
The bulk of the money the department gave Keegan's network has gone to developing alternative forms of teacher certification. The No Child Left Behind law stipulates that every student has the right to a "fully qualified" teacher, a requirement that has strained traditional teacher training colleges.
Keegan said it was only natural that the Bush administration should want to correct a liberal bias in American education by giving grants to groups that share its philosophy. While she rejects the "right-wing" tag, she says "it is necessary to be ideological in education these days if you want to promote academic standards, school choice and new routes to certifying teachers that work against the grain of current ideas in education."
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle
http://sfgate.com |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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Bush's Education Reform Gets Poor Marks All Around |
by Edwin Chen
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
06 Jan 2004
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Conservatives and liberals, and even some school officials, say the plan is too bureaucratic and needs better funding
ST. LOUIS — In the maiden political foray of his reelection year, President Bush picked up $2.8 million at a fundraiser here Monday after paying a brief visit to an inner-city school to tout his credentials as an education president.
Despite the strong bipartisan support in Congress that a year ago led to enactment of Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which imposed the most sweeping education reforms in a generation, the president is facing criticism on the issue from some conservatives, as well as liberals who helped him move the measure into law.
Conservatives and some school officials around the country are upset about what they regard as a big-government, top-down approach to reforming education — one that has imposed strict testing standards on schools and threatens to tag many of them as failing.
Liberals, many of whom had worked closely with Bush in 2001 to pass the measure, are lambasting him for providing inadequate federal funds and leaving many school districts forced to dig into their own pockets.
The bill requires schools to set achievement standards and then annually test reading and math skills in the third through eighth grades. The law also allows parents to transfer their children to better schools or receive public funds for after-school tutoring.
At Pierre Laclede Elementary School here, Bush strongly defended the testing requirements.
"How do you know if a child isn't reading if you don't test? How do you know who needs help? I mean, if the idea is to make sure not one child is left behind, you better test," he said. "We've got to stop this business about just shuffling kids through the schools in America. We've got to stop social promotion and focus on whether or not each child is getting the instruction he or she needs."
Among the 100 or so community educators invited to the president's appearance was Henry P. Williams, superintendent of the nearby Riverview Gardens school district. While lauding the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act, Williams also said the bill had forced school districts to spend their own money to meet the new federal accountability mandates.
In Washington, a number of congressional Democrats questioned Bush's commitment to public education reform.
"The president's budget fails to recognize that strong schools are as important to our future as a strong defense," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). He said Bush's budget would leave "over 4.6 million children behind," including 8,100 children in St. Louis, because it is "over $7 billion short of the amount promised for smaller classes, better teachers and higher standards when the No Child Left Behind Act was passed."
Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez), who had joined Kennedy in working with the White House on the legislation, said Bush's actions since the bill's passage had "severely undercut" its goal.
Briefing reporters aboard Air Force One, Margaret Spelling, the White House domestic policy advisor, disputed the notion that states were receiving inadequate funds. "It's hard to believe there are not adequate resources," she said, because the states have not yet drawn down $6 billion for which they are eligible.
Bush chose to visit Laclede because its students have made remarkable progress in reading. In 1999, only 7% of third-graders were reading at that level; today, 80% are.
"I want to congratulate you for setting the standard and keep raising the bar," Bush said. "Make sure that other 20% gets up to grade level."
About 1,100 Bush supporters attended his reelection campaign fundraiser, netting the president at least $2.8 million and bringing the amount in his campaign war chest to more than $120 million . Bush also is scheduled to attend fundraisers Thursday in Knoxville, Tenn., and Palm Beach, Fla.
Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com |
