Candidates' Rhetoric On Education Carries Little Weight
Byline: MARILYN BROWN, The Tampa Tribune, October 21, 2004
Edition: FINAL
Section: NATION/WORLD

FEDERAL INFLUENCE ON SCHOOLS IS SMALL
mbrown@tampatrib.com

TAMPA -- In May, Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie came to Tampa to promote President Bush's education policies.

Under a huge banner heralding the No Child Left Behind law, Gillespie told some 300 supporters how NCLB raised expectations and improved education.

A parade of local parents echoed him, crediting their children's success to their opportunity to enroll in private schools at public expense.

The problem?

Those families benefited from Florida's school voucher programs, which have nothing to do with NCLB or federal policy.

Did the audience know the difference?

Probably not, Gillespie acknowledged afterward.

The example shows how tough it is for families to sort through the complexities of state and federal education programs -- much less to evaluate political claims.

This year, that's an especially murky endeavor.

In 2000, education was a campaign highlight, with tough talk of accountability and higher standards. Now the tough talk is of war, national security and the economy.

What voters should keep in mind is that only a small fraction of public school costs is paid by federal tax dollars. Washington has almost nothing to do with perennial issues of concern such as teacher pay and smaller class sizes.

Candidates often pledge support for those popular issues even if they can do little or nothing about them.

What they might be able to do something about is NCLB, which champions higher standards, increased accountability and closing the achievement gap between white and minority students.

The 2002 law was promoted by Bush and gained bipartisan support, including the vote of Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic rival for election.

Today the law is being ignored by some states, maligned by teachers unions and in need of reform, according to Kerry and others.

Good Goals, Poor Execution

The thick law requires all states to test students by state- created standards and tests, and it is supposed to sanction schools that don't make "adequate yearly progress."

Bush describes the law as the best vehicle to make the nation's public schools accountable and raise education standards.

In his final debate with Kerry, he stretched that further, saying NCLB was "really a jobs act" because better education leads to better jobs.

Kerry and much of the education community say the law has merit because it identifies children who aren't performing, and it sets a goal of raising the academic bar.

On the other hand, they say, Bush punishes schools that don't hit the mark, and he hasn't funded the program enough to help those schools make it.

At Florida's National Association for the Advancement of Colored People conference in Tampa, Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, railed against the way the law is playing out.

"The goals of this law are excellent goals," he said. But "it's one thing to shine a spotlight on things and another thing to do something after you've shone the spotlight."

Kerry has said he wants to keep the law because it encourages accountability, but he wants changes. He contends the federal government has not kept its promise to fund the law fully, falling short by as much as $28 billion.

Bush responds that he has increased funding for education by nearly 50 percent. He's referring to growth in spending on NCLB and help for disabled children, even though that counts billions of dollars approved by Congress that were not in Bush's budget requests.

The bottom line is that both arguments lack the perspective of just how little the federal government can do about education.

States Carry The Burden

Almost all tax money collected and spent on education is at the state and local levels. Federal discretionary spending for K-12 education this year totals $35.5 billion, which doesn't include subsidized lunch and early childhood programs.

By comparison, Florida's education budget is $17.9 billion, including about $1.8 billion in federal money. The Hillsborough County school district alone has an annual budget of $2.3 billion, including all state and federal money.

With such a small percentage of federal tax money flowing to the state, it might be the federal government's control over that money that makes it appear that more is at stake, especially in Florida.

Federal Standards Are Higher

Two factors make NCLB controversial.

One is that it rates every public school regarding adequate yearly progress on a national report card. Parents don't like what they consider a "failing label" placed on their children's schools, especially if their schools make high marks by other measures, said Walt Bartlett, Hillsborough's director of federal programs.

Because of the way Florida interprets annual student progress, most of its schools did not meet the federal mark the past two years, even though the majority did well on Florida's own grading system and performed well on national comparisons.

Not making the federal mark doesn't cut federal money, as some people say. It does divert some federal Title I money used to pay for extra teachers and supplies in schools with high percentages of students from poor families.

Under NCLB, districts are supposed to use some of that money to transport students who want to move to better-performing public schools or pay for private tutors to help them. That's a logistical problem, school districts say.

Among other education issues Florida voters might want to consider is a state constitutional amendment ordering the provision of voluntary prekindergarten for all 4-year-olds who want it in 2005.

The money to pay for that must come from state coffers, but legislators have not determined where they will find the money.

Florida gets about $280 million in federal tax dollars to pay for Head Start and $235 million for child care assistance this year. Some educators are concerned the state might try to tap that money for the prekindergarten initiative, leaving less for the long waiting lists of poor families that need child care.

In addition, federal money for child care assistance has been frozen three years, and Head Start funding has increased only enough to cover cost of living.

Unlike K-12 regular programs, most of the public money for child care and other early childhood programs comes from the federal government.

"The White House budget through 2009 shows at least 300,000 children would lose assistance," said Adele Robinson, senior director for public policy and communication at the National Association for the Education of Young Children, in Washington.

"That's not good when Florida has over 56,000 waiting for assistance," she said.

Florida's prekindergarten plans call for including private schools because public schools don't have enough teachers or classrooms to handle so many children. That will expand the state's use of tax money to provide vouchers for private school tuition.

Florida leads the nation in voucher initiatives, with three separate programs, a concept Bush has pushed without success at the federal level.

EARLY CHILDHOOD:

Bush: Wants Head Start to focus more on school readiness. Says federal funding increases should favor states with coordinated childhood plans.

Kerry: Wants more money for early childhood programs, including Head Start, funded partly by discontinuing tax cuts for wealthiest Americans.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND:

Bush: Supports "staying the course" on the law he championed, then adding two more years of state high school math and reading tests.

Kerry: Says the law needs changes to measure student success, funded fully by discontinued tax cuts for those earning at least $200,000 a year.

HIGHER EDUCATION:

Bush: Proposes Pell grant expansion for needy students taking rigorous high school classes, greater loan forgiveness for teachers in poor schools.

Kerry: Proposes refundable tax credit on $4,000 of tuition for four years of college, $10 billion for states that keep tuition increases within inflation rate.


mbrown@tampatrib.com

William Shakespeare - All the world's a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything

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