Bush Plan May Set Students Up for Failure

During his campaign for the presidency, George W. Bush appealed to Americans’ best instincts when he declared that no child should be left behind. It is a big promise, but all of us will agree that every child in America should have the same opportunity to reach his or her full potential regardless of the color of skin, gender or the income level of the child’s parents. That shining American promise of equal opportunity has inspired generations of social reformers, and President Bush skillfully appealed to it, and across party lines.

But, although he’s proposed only an outline, to be fleshed out in his February budget, I am afraid that his plan could set up millions of vulnerable kids for failure, leaving us with another dose of mostly symbolic politics at the expense of poor children and their families. The education reform framework that the new administration is developing, an accountability system that likely will be based on a single test given annually in grades three through eight that financially sanctions schools that do not show quick improvement, could do a great deal of additional damage to the children in America’s most troubled public schools.

It is wrong to expect schools to succeed virtually overnight when we do so little to attack what author and children’s advocate Jonathan Kozol terms the “savage inequalities” in education in America today. How can we expect the poorest children, who face every disadvantage, to do as well as those who have every advantage?

It’s clear that we have failed to provide all children with the same tools for success. And given Bush’s other spending priorities--a $1.6 trillion tax cut, the benefits of which go overwhelmingly to the wealthiest Americans; an expensive and unworkable missile defense system; promises to save Social Security and Medicare, and further progress toward paying down the national debt--it seems certain there will be little if anything left to finance his efforts to leave no child behind.

The funding gaps are especially wide in programs that address the earliest stages of children’s lives, like Head Start. By the time students enter the third grade, when the Bush testing plan would kick in, much has already been determined about whether individual children will succeed or struggle academically. The significance of early childhood development is well established. If we get it right for these children early on, they actually have a chance later in school to learn and develop on par with more advantaged children. Yet, relative to need, the Bush plan commits no significant new funding in this area.

Only 2% of eligible children under the age of 2, and less than one-half of all eligible 4-year-olds, now participate in Early Head Start. Ensuring that all eligible children have access to these critical programs would cost tens of billions of dollars. The limited funding in the Bush plan to promote literacy is too little, too late.

Our nation’s schools must be accountable to the children being educated in them and to their parents. And, assessments of students’ academic achievement, including standardized tests, should be part of any accountability plan. But making high-stakes annual tests the sole determinant for students and their schools, and imposing major costs on those who fail, is counter-productive.

Assessment should measure, not drive, education reform. Tests are necessary, but if we over rely on them and disregard the key elements that contribute to substantive learning, we are putting the cart before the horse. We force teachers to “teach to the test,” an intellectually deadening experience for kids, whose curriculum becomes too focused on test-taking. We force schools to spend thousands on consultants to teach test-taking strategies instead of substantive learning, and we end up with situations such as those in Texas and New York in which people cheat to inflate their school’s scores.

The magic that can happen between a creative teacher and engaged students is too often lost in schools driven by test preparation.

If Democrats want to directly address the needs of America’s most vulnerable kids, the answer lies not in merely parroting the Bush education plan, minus vouchers. Rather, we must press for a bold new commitment to the principle of equal opportunity to learn for every child: full funding for federal programs for disadvantaged kids, historic new investments in pre-K education for every needy child, full funding for the IDEA program, which aids disabled kids, and, as experts recommend, a sound, reliable accountability system based on more than just one test.

President Bush’s education plan will ring hollow if he does not back it up with real funding for these and other key programs. Before we threaten to withhold billions from schools in the name of accountability, politicians and education leaders at all levels, from the White House on down, must first be held accountable to give children what they need to learn.