Bush Balks at More Money for Education : ‘Better Value for What We Spend’ Is Needed, He Says

President Bush said today that his desire to be known as the education President does not mean massive infusions of money to improve America’s schools.

“More spending isn’t the only right answer, or even the best answer,” Bush said in remarks to an education conference at Union High School. “What we need is better value for what we spend.”

Just two weeks after unveiling a $441-million education plan that was widely criticized as paltry, Bush countered that “a society that worships money--or sees money as a cure for all that ails it--is a society in peril.

“We must do more than wish we had more to spend. Because the challenge of education reform suggests something much more fundamental than money,” he said.

Bush said state, local and federal education spending already totals $330 billion a year, “more than we spend on defense” and more than is spent by any other industrialized country.

The need to improve America’s schools was a central theme of Bush’s presidential campaign, but he made clear today that he sees himself primarily as a cheerleader.

“I do want to be remembered as the ‘education President’--someone who used the bully pulpit of the presidency to improve American schools.”

He called on business leaders, parents and teachers to step up their efforts for excellence in education, saying that “all of us are accountable for the quality of American schools.”

Bush’s emphasis on the limited availability of funds has become a regular feature of his domestic policy speeches and has led to criticism in some quarters that his resistance to tax increases has frustrated his ability to meet pressing needs.