Bush Decries Critics of New Education Law (Saturday Morning Radio Address)

Associated Press | Saturday, January 3, 2003 | By DEB RIECHMANN

[JohnHuang2]

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) - Gearing up for a possible election year fight on his education initiative, President Bush defended his ``No Child Left Behind'' law against critics who say it's been shortchanged and assumes all students learn at the same rates.

``The time for excuses has passed,'' Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

Bush plans to mark the second anniversary of the initiative, the cornerstone of his domestic agenda, during speeches at an elementary school in St. Louis on Monday and one in Knoxville, Tenn., on Thursday.

Bush and other Republicans say the law, which the president signed on Jan. 8, 2002, expands testing and toughens standards for teachers, schools and students.

The initiative, however, has lost support of some Democrats who say too little money has been spent on the mandated actions. Critics have argued that the funding increases that Bush touts aren't nearly enough to cover the costs of the new requirements, including the expense of creating tests and processing their results.

Congressional Democrats have tried without success to provide billions of dollars of additional funding.

Critics also say that the way the federal grading system works isn't fair in some cases because it requires yearly progress not just from a school, but from every subgroup of students, including those with disabilities or ones who speak English as a second language.

Bush, however, defended the ambitious standards.

``Some critics have objected to these reforms because they believe our expectations are too high, or that it is unfair to hold all students to the same standards regardless of background, or that we're punishing schools that are not making progress,'' he said.

``Our reforms insist on high standards because we know every child can learn. Our reforms call for testing because the worst discrimination is to ignore a school's failure to teach every child.''

01/03/04 10:14 EST

[JohnHuang2]

Saturday, January 3, 2003

Quote of the Day by PhilDragoo

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[Ahban]

President Bush is dead wrong about this, the "cornerstone of his domestic agenda". It is utopian claptrap that denies the free will of the individual child. It also holds the schools accountable without holding the student accountable, which flies in the face of the concept of individual responsibility.

The federal government has NO Constitutional role in education, and the Department of Education should be eliminated.

http://www.constitutionparty.com

[cynicom]

Bush should get the federal government the hell out of education. No child left behind is a stupid and cruel joke on the taxpayers. His good "friend" Kennedy wins another onme. Money down the "education" blackhole.

[Mike4Freedom]

I know that Bush doesn't read much, but do you think that he ever got around to reading the constitution? If he had, he would have seen that education is not at all the business of the federal government.

But then, he is a liberal and liberals don't care about those little details.

[jocko12]

JUST A WASTE OF TAX PAYERS MONEY.

[FITZ]

Yes --- not only free will but some kids are born brighter and to brighter more educated families.

Like it or not, not everyone is going to complete college --- there needs to be more acceptance of the differences and allow communities to promote vocational ed and alternative schools.

Some schools are having a lot more problems because of these programs and the push to keep all kids in school whether they belong there or not. In schools of heavy gang activity, a high drop out rate is actually helpful to the school because the criminals leave and the environment becomes more conductive to learning.

[OldFriend]

Utopian claptrap that informs parents when their child's teacher is NOT meeting professional performance standards.

Utopian claptrap that publishes the names of schools that are not measuring up to professional education standards......oh, the embarrassment, the shame.......we can't have that now can we?

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

Guys, the more money we put into "education" the WORSE it gets. Year after year. THIS IS INSANITY!!!!!! Peace and love, George.

[Reagan Man]

>>>The federal government has NO Constitutional role in education, and the Department of Education should be eliminated.

Ditto.

[George Frm Br00klyn Park]

"Our reforms insist on high standards because we know every child can learn."

OF, This is "utopian" to the max. Many of these morons actually think{?} that all children learn alike, and those who know, LIE!!! Peace and love, George.

[Renegade]

The truth is that Bush let Ted Kennedy and his cronies write the No Child Left Behind Act . The Demorats wrote it , he signed it , and now they( the same Demorats) blame "W" for the bill their own side has written .. HA ! HA ! HA!
The one provision that is good in the bill is that NOW teachers MUST be certified in the area they teach . Until now many teachers with a general elementary education certificate were teaching in the disciplines of Math and Science at the middle school level ( grades 5-8). That is why many kids in middle schools still thought it rained when the clouds banged together and broke open .

[Dane]

OF, just the usual knee jerk reactions from the usual suspects whose first reaction is to go knee jerk and scream Constitution, while ignoring that the demos and the NEA absoulutely despise the standards.

[OldFriend]

There was no way the entire system was going to be overhauled in one fell swoop. There is so much in the bill that the NEA is against that it just makes me laugh. They thought that as long as the bill didn't contain vouchers they were safe.

Truth is that there are standards that must be met or that fact will be publicized. In the end it will be up to parents to demand excellence from their schools. Until then, nothing will be gained.

[OldFriend]

The dems are shrieking that more money is NOT being put into education. But don't tell that to the Bush haters here.

[Ahban]

Even if some parts of it are a good idea why does every good idea have to be done by the Federal Government of the United States at taxpayer's expense? Are concerned parents not able to ask around and find out who the good and bad teachers are at their schools without being told which are good from Washington D.C.?

As far as those "Professional Education Standards" goes, they are workfare programs for liberal seminar holders, not anything that helps teachers teach better.

Tell me what you do for a living and maybe I can come up with an explanation of why "not meeting professional performance standards" is also misleading.

[Dane]

Even if some parts of it are a good idea why does every good idea have to be done by the Federal Government of the United States at taxpayer's expense? Are concerned parents not able to ask around and find out who the good and bad teachers are at their schools without being told which are good from Washington D.C.?

Yes they can, except without a published federal standard the NEA protects them.

Are you promoting the NEA protecting substandard teachers?

[Ahban]

Whereas your reaction is that of a typical knee-jerk Bush-bot who does not even attempt to refute the points of the commentary, but simply screams that we must accept anything from Bush because the demos are worse. It's the Animal Farm scene where the other animals are told they must accept bad things from the pigs because "we can't let farmer Jones come back".

[Dane]

Whereas your reaction is that of a typical knee-jerk Bush-bot who does not even attempt to refute the points of the commentary, but simply screams that we must accept anything from Bush because the demos are worse. It's the Animal Farm scene where the other animals are told they must accept bad things from the pigs because "we can't let farmer Jones come back".

Yeah whatever, do your NEA spewing all you want.

[FITZ]

Utopian claptrap that publishes the names of schools that are not measuring up to professional education standards

But that can be very misleading. You can look at some of the schools that appear not to be measuring up --- yet a few of their students are doing exceptionally well on the standardized tests. The teachers often are interchangeable with those at the better performing schools --- at least around here.