Education Reform Bill Gets Low Marks

Re “Congress OKs Overhaul of Public Schools,” Dec. 19: I find it ironic and a reflection of the typically cynical Washington approach to the problems of public education that President Bush and other advocates of this $26.4-billion legislative boondoggle characterize it as landmark legislation and “the most important overhaul of elementary and secondary education since ... 1965.” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) is quoted as saying that this bill sends a message to every parent that “help is on the way.” Help for whom or what, their political image in an election year?

As someone who deals with the daily challenges of finding the resources to fund what are truly effective and needed reforms, I find what is and, even more important, what is not in this bill most disheartening. There is talk of more testing and “12-year goals” and more “district report cards,” but nowhere do I see anything to address the basic issues we deal with at the grass-roots level of a local district: how to attract qualified college graduates to teaching in light of the current and projected shortages as the baby boomers reach retirement; how to create a level playing field when the state and federal funding per pupil vary so widely from state to state and even between neighboring local school districts; how to teach children in aging, outdated facilities that most federal workers would refuse to set foot in, let alone work in, each day.

These are the meat-and-potatoes issues that always seem to be shuffled aside in the “reform du jour” movements that come at us in predictable, election-year cycles.

And if Bush and the rest of the Capitol Hill gang want to talk “accountability,” they should listen to a man of principle and character in their midst--Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont--who once again tried and failed in this legislative session to get the federal government to uphold decades of broken promises to properly fund the cost of federal special-education mandates that are bleeding local districts dry. Out of this fanfare of $26.4 billion in education reforms, not one dime could be squeezed out to address this long-past-due moral and financial commitment from Washington to pay for the proper education of our special-needs children.

Kevin E. Condon

Chief Business Officer

Torrance Unified School District

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In order to leave no child behind we must pay attention to the children who are most behind. This bill focuses mainly on standards that are determined using average test scores. Any meaningful attempt to assist students who are most behind will focus primarily on children who are performing at the lowest of low levels. As anyone who has worked with these highly learning-challenged students will attest, these students need much more than the once-a-week tutoring that is provided for in the education bill. These lowest-performing students need loving, patient, creative, skilled, inspiring and daily individual instruction.

Another benefit of seriously attempting to leave no child behind is that it might help some of us to slow down and discover the benefits of helping people who are struggling. After all, life is not a race. Life is our commonly shared attribute that contains the possibility of mutually sustained love, appreciation, creativity and learning.

Scott Pleune

West Hollywood