PRESIDENT BUSH SAYS: No Child Left Behind is a success.  Congress should reauthorize it and establish Pell Grants for Kids in underperforming schools to pay tuition at private or parochial schools.

"The No Child Left Behind Act is a bipartisan achievement. It is succeeding. And we owe it to America's children, their parents, and their teachers to strengthen this good law… I ask you to support a new $300 million program called Pell Grants for Kids. We have seen how Pell Grants help low-income college students realize their full potential… now let"s apply that same spirit to help liberate poor children trapped in failing schools.”

DMI SAYS: “Lacking any original new ideas, the President turned to reauthorizing No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and offering school vouchers as his routes to improving public education. Although math and reading scores have risen moderately since - but not necessarily because of – NCLB’s enactment, problems with its implementation and the President’s own refusal to properly fund the program doomed it almost from the start. Unless the President is willing to reform and fully fund NCLB, it will once again stand no chance of helping American children get the start they need to attain a middle-class standard of living in adulthood." 

“Pell Grants for Kids,” is nothing more than a voucher scheme. Moving children from one school to another is an inadequate substitute for a broad, aggressive effort to improve all of our public schools.  Under the President’s school voucher approach, while some students may enroll in better schools, scores of other children will be left to fend for themselves in failing schools that have been stripped of their stronger students.  The 'Many Children Left Behind’ approach created by school voucher programs in fact moves away from ensuring all American children receive a quality public education.”

?      NCLB’s impact on the narrowing of racial and poverty achievement gaps is dubious.  The research predicts that less than a quarter of poor and black students will achieve reading proficiency by the Bush administration’s goal of 2014 and less than half will attain math proficiency at the current rate of advancement.

?     Research does not substantiate the Department of Education’s praise for NCLB as the source of student gains in reading and in math.  Student gains in 2007 – primarily in the math scores of fourth and eighth graders – are at best a result of the interaction of the federal program with state and local education reforms undertaken before and after NCLB’s enactment.  Indeed, a 2006 Harvard study concludes that NCLB did not have a significant impact on reading and math achievement, while a report published by the Center for Education Policy in late 2007 reveals that the disappointing reading scores of eighth graders are not “good news for supporters of No Child Left Behind…”   

?       A significant reason NCLB has failed to live up to its early promise is that it has never been adequately funded. Since the law’s passage, President Bush has requested funding levels more than $70 billion less than the authorized level. Schools and school systems were never provided with sufficient resources to support student achievement, yet schools receive funding based on how well students perform on standardized tests.

?       Preparing students for the 21^st century requires much more than NCLB has to offer.  President Bush could have used his address tonight to lay out plans for what the nation really needs: a comprehensive education policy that extends from pre-school to college.  Modest policy changes could ensure that elementary and secondary students receive adequate education in history and civics as well as literacy and math; could ensure that every eligible child has access to Head Start; and could raise the maximum Pell Grant that is available to college students.  Had these education policies been endorsed in tonight’s address, we would be closer to ensuring that America’s youth have the resources they need for the future.  

?       A “Pell Grant” provides needs-based aid to low-income students to promote access to postsecondary education. Its function is to facilitate access to higher education which is not universal in the United States, not to undermine a system of public education, which is. Naming a controversial voucher program designed to benefit a few at the expense of the many after a college-aid program that has served millions of Americans is disingenuous at best.

Relevant Statistics

?       Number of elementary school teachers that could be hired for one year with the money spent in fiscal year 2007 on the Iraq War, as estimated by the National Priorities Project: 2,342,626.

?       Number of elementary and middle school teachers currently in the United States: 2.7 million.

?       Amount by which NCLB has been underfunded since its enactment in 2002: $70.9 billion.

?     Minimum ratio of states that reported receiving inadequate federal funds to carry out their obligations under NCLB: 2/3.

?       Maximum percentage of students who will meet proficiency targets in reading by 2014 if present trends continue, according to the Harvard University Civil Rights Project: 34.

?       Average score of white fourth graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s 2007 math test: 248.

?      Average score of black fourth graders on the National Assessment of Educational Progress’s 2007 math test: 222.

?       Minimum return for every dollar invested in early childhood education: $4.

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DMI on the 2008 State of the Union