October 09, 2007
Bush Issues Plea For No Child Left Behind
One week after losing precious political points for his party by vetoing a bill to expand a popular children's health care program, President Bush stepped into the White House Rose Garden today and pleaded with Congress for a bipartisan solution to another major children's issue: education.
"No Child Left Behind is replacing a culture of low expectations with a commitment to high achievement for all," Bush told reporters as he called on members from both sides of the aisle to renew his landmark 2002 education reform act. Emphasizing the original goal of having "every child reading and doing math at grade level by 2014" -- a benchmark some lawmakers and educators have balked at -- Bush said he was not willing to compromise "on holding schools accountable."
The No Child Left Behind Act is set to expire this year, but a contentious congressional agenda of war-related legislation, immigration reform, ethics and health care has largely sidelined the debate until now. Critics on both sides of the aisle are calling for a massive overhaul of the program before they will renew it. But the many different stakeholders in the issue -- parents, teachers, school districts, lawmakers -- have vastly different ideas about what kind of overhaul is needed.
In a recent interview with National Journal's Lisa Caruso, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings sounded a note of optimism about the bill's prospects this year, saying "there's a ton of consensus about the areas that need to be improved." She added: "We need to find the sweet spot here, the consensus things, and work together around those things that are in keeping with the core principles -- which are working -- and move forward in that way." Spellings' full interview is available here (subscription).
Earlier this fall, the San Francisco Chronicle previewed the "political donnybrook" surrounding the reauthorization debate. And last week, McClatchy Newspapers reported on the strange bedfellows the issue has produced in Washington.
Posted at 3:28 PM
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Bush Administration, Congress, Education, President Bush
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