Arthur Levine, President of Teachers College Comments on Education Initiative
"With a few strokes of the pen, President Bush has pushed an acrimonious and paralyzing ideological debate over the future course of American public education momentarily to the back-burner. But more importantly, he has set the nation on a path that reaffirms the priority of revitalizing public education for our future. This was by no means inevitable in the face of a war on terrorism and a troubled economy. The President could easily have permitted education to drop off the country's agenda. Notable too is that this Republican President achieved a consensus and additional funding for education in a Republican controlled House of Representatives and a barely Democratic Senate for a bill which seeks primarily to close the achievement gap between this nation's most advantaged suburban and its most disadvantaged urban children. This is a traditional Democratic issue.
Just how the big the legislative compromise was is reflected in the disappointment of conservatives because the new law buries proposals for federal support for vouchers; while Democrats led by Senator Kennedy, who supported the bill, view the additional billions more provided for under the Title 1 program aimed at poor students in the early grades as simply not enough.
We need only to remember that there was a time, not that long ago, when Washington's role in lending a hand to achieve educational equity in the nation was considered an irresponsible idea. So much so that under President Reagan the goal was not only to diminish the federal role in education by eliminating the U. S. Department of Education {the symbol of federal involvement} but specifically targeting Title 1 {the symbol of equal education opportunity) for dramatic cuts, only to be thwarted by a reluctant Democratic Congress.
I do not mean to imply that the new law is a panacea or an antidote to our nation's educational problems, nor is it the law I would have hoped for. Indeed, it comes at a time in which dramatic increases in school funding will be essential to compensate for declines in state and local coffers owing to a weaker economy and falling tax revenues. This is especially true for large urban centers, which confront overwhelming educational problems. New York City, for instance, is especially under the gun when it comes to financing schools in the face of the World Trade Center attack. And like most major cities with their disproportionate minority student populations needs more, not less, support.
Another concern is the failure of the bill to provide the additional funding Congress authorized more than a quarter of century ago to provide up to 40 percent of each's states added expenditure for educating children with disabilities. The federal government now only provides l5 percent despite a growing population of students in need of special education.
Further, the new testing requirements annually in reading and math in grades three through eight will prove burdensome and even arbitrary as each state develops its own unique testing program. Plus, accountability mechanisms place added burdens on both teachers and administrators. Understandably, too, many educators feel the emphasis on test scores is likely to stymie classroom creativity. They surely have a point. Yet if we've learned anything in recent years, it's that government will not provide more resources without indicators of results. That's the trade-off. So educators must be realistic. States too. The reporting requirement by gender, race and ethnicity required by the law may actually serve to spotlight the most glaring shortcomings of our nation's schools and force improvements.
While the new law does not address two of the most profound problems our schools face- the systematic underfunding of urban schools and the inadequate salaries of teachers, it does provide the states with additional funds to support teacher preparation programs if they so chose. The states can also use the larger bloc grants they will receive for other needs as well, such as the development of academic standards and the purchase of needed technology.
The limitations of the legislation signed by President Bush are large and many. But the gains are even larger. The Presidential signing demonstrates the power and ability of leadership and compromise in a deeply divided government to do the right thing. It shows the potential and the possibility of the nation to come together in behalf of all of our children. It recognizes that we can ill-afford to leave behind the growing numbers of children of color, poverty, and minority ethnicity. In this sense, the new law is a moral statement, a reaffirmation of our commitment to the American Dream, and a step in the right direction of redressing the shortcomings of the present."
Arthur Levine is President of Teachers College, Columbia University.
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