Bush’s Budget ‘Leaving Children Behind’
WASHINGTON, Oct. 09, 2002–Despite President George W. Bush’s promise to “leave no child behind,” students in the nation are suffering from massive state education cuts-and no help from the federal government is on the way, members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation are saying.
“State reductions in school funding and the worst federal education budget in seven years are cutting off the promise of school reform at the knees,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) said Tuesday.
“In fact, the federal budget released by the Bush Administration increased education funding by less than inflation-the smallest increase in education funding in the last seven years,” according to a report Kennedy issued the same day.
The report was prepared by the Democratic staffs of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
The Leave No Child Behind Act was signed into law in January after winning overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. It was aimed at dramatically reforming the K-12 school system. These changes included requiring schools to be more accountable for the success of their students and to emphasize teaching methods that have proven successful.
Some Massachusetts members of Congress, however, are saying that the budget that President Bush and the Republican leadership in Congress have proposed is not living up to Bush’s promise of ensuring that every child has a quality education.
“Millions of public school children and their families are being left behind, and it looks now as if the Republican leadership in the House may not even bring up the education appropriations bill because it would embarrass their own members so close to the election,” Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.) said last month. “They are afraid the public will catch on to the fact that the president’s rhetoric doesn’t match the reality of his budget.”
“In combination with inflation, the result of this lowball budget is 18,000 fewer teachers getting trained, 33,000 fewer children in after-school programs and yet another year without the needed resources to turn around failing schools,” Tierney added.
Bush’s budget calls for a 2.8 percent increase for education this fiscal year, compared with a 16 percent hike last year, according to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
Thomas Consolati, the district superintendent of Gloucester Public Schools, said he was most concerned with obtaining enough money from the federal government to increase literacy among disadvantaged students. Most so-called Title I funds are used to pay for special-education teachers’ salaries and student services, which are usually adjusted annually for inflation.
“If the Title I allocation to us doesn’t increase commensurate with salary and benefit increases of the staff, then you end up with less money, meaning less services-bottom line-to kids,” Consolati said.
Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman, would not comment on specific numbers in Bush’s budget, but said: “The president’s landmark education legislation that passed in Congress is the most significant piece of education legislation ever passed. It returned accountability to a system that too long lacked it.”
OMB, which helps the president prepare the federal budget, emphasized that now was the time for schools to be accountable for the funds they have allocated.
“We have provided resources. We are providing resources,” said Amy Call, a spokeswoman for OMB. “Now they need to move forward and show results from the resources they’ve gotten.”
Published in The Gloucester Daily News, in Massachusetts
