Reauthorizing NCLB (2/1/2008)

The President called on Congress to strengthen and reauthorize his key domestic legacy, NCLB. "No one can deny its results," said Bush during the State of the Union. "Last year, fourth and eighth graders achieved the highest math scores on record. Reading scores are on the rise. And African-American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs.” Building on this success, the President identified four ways that Congress, with his approval, could strengthen the law. “We must work together to increase accountability, add flexibility for States and districts, reduce the number of high school dropouts, and provide extra help for struggling schools.” Working together, however, will prove challenging in 2008, for a number of reasons.

First, the President has already stated his unwillingness to accept many changes to the law. At the close of last year, he stated his intent to veto any bill that would weaken the law's accountability provisions and he clearly stated his displeasure with the draft proposed by the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, George Miller (D-CA). Second, even if he were more willing to revise the law, there is little consensus over the right way to do it. There is considerable political acrimony among the Democratic and Republican ranks over the law’s general principles and specific details. Between the parties there is even more acrimony, which is magnified by election year politics. Third, as soon as the President completed his pleas to reauthorize NCLB, he launched into a new school choice initiative. This did not facilitate a bipartisan mood.

Addressing the matter of vanishing inner city non-public schools, the President proposed to convene a White House summit aimed at strengthening the supply of these schools so parents of "poor children trapped in failing public schools" could have better options. And to help children access these schools, the President proposed a new $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids. This, at the heels of a request to strengthen NCLB, sparked plenty of snarky cynicism among liberal edu-pundits in Washington still reeling from the lackluster fiscal year 2008 appropriations.
Despite the common sentiment that Congress will not reauthorize the law until after the elections, the Aspen Institute attempted to rekindle momentum for an early 2008 reauthorization by hosting a panel discussion on NCLB on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

The panel, entitled “Improving No Child Left Behind Now: The Cost of Waiting,” made the case for quick action this year, but the sense of urgency was not contagious. Key congressional staff in the House and Senate education committees all stated the intent of their Members to advance language in 2008, but the specter of delay due to election politics did not retreat. “We are still moving ahead,” said Alice Johnson Cain, Congressman George Miller’s senior advisor for K-12 issues, “but let’s be real, with the elections ahead of us this is going to be an uphill battle.”

Resource:
“Improving No Child Left Behind Now: The Cost of Waiting,” Aspen Institute, Panel Discussion, January 31, 2008, http://www.aspeninstitute.org/site/c.huLWJeMRKpH/b.3837913/k.D129/Commission_Joins_Groups_for_Panel_on_Capitol_Hill.htm.
“State of the Union 2008,” The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2008/index.html.
Author: DAD