Bush: 'No Child' law should be renewed
NEW YORK --President Bush, focusing on an overshadowed domestic agenda, urged on Congress on Tuesday to renew and broaden the farthest-reaching education law in a generation.
At a Harlem charter school, Bush lauded the same elements of the No Child Left Behind Act that have made it a tough sell in many places -- yearly testing and consequences for failure.
"Congress shouldn't weaken the bill. It's working," Bush said in the steamy auditorium at Harlem Village Academy Charter School.
"If you're a parent, you should insist that the No Child Left Behind Act remain a strong accountability tool so that every child in this country gets a good education," Bush said.
Bush's trip was part of a concerted White House effort to show he is actively pursuing his goals at home. Yet even on a day when the message was education, there was no escaping the Iraq war -- on his way out of town, Bush announced he would veto a Democratic war spending bill.
The president's education law is up for congressional renewal this year. He appears to have held onto enough bipartisan support to get the law through again with its core elements intact.
Under the law, schools must test students in reading and math in grades three through eight, and once in high school. Penalties come if schools receive federal aid face but do not improve.
The goal is to ensure that all children can read and do math at grade level by 2014. That has forced schools to put an unprecedented focus on the education of poor and minority children.
"I know, people say, 'I don't like to test, you're testing too much,'" Bush said. "I don't see how you can solve problems unless you diagnose the problems. I don't see how you can meet high standards unless you test."
Despite its laudable goals, the law is often derided as restrictive and poorly enforced.
Lawmakers want change. Democrats will push for more spending and looser rules on how schools are graded and penalized. Bush signaled he will compromise on ways to make the law better.
He also dusted off his ideas to expand the law's reach into high schools, and provide private-school vouchers to many kids in struggling schools. Congress has not warmed to either.
Bush's travel took him through the divergent landscape of New York City.
He began with a dramatic helicopter landing in a baseball field in Central Park. His motorcade then made the short trip through Harlem to underscore the theme of his law: poor and minority children can thrive if provided with high expectations and innovative teaching.
After his speech, Bush relaxed at the posh Waldorf-Astoria in midtown Manhattan. He was later to have a fundraising dinner at the Upper East Side home of billionaire Steve Schwarzman. It was expected to raise $1.2 million for the Republican National Committee.
Bush visited Harlem Village Academy, which has posted rising math and reading scores since it opened in 2003.
Charter schools receive public money but operate under fewer restrictions than other public schools. The one Bush toured uses a long school day -- 7:30 a.m to 5:30 p.m. -- each day.
Bush stopped through class after class. He was joined by a sometimes nemesis, Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, the Harlem native who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee.
The president walked into a seventh-grade science classroom just after things got messy.
Students learned how pressure builds in volcanoes by compressing liquid in water bottles, shaking them up and opening them. The explosions spewed orange wash all over them.
But they wore giant white T-shirts as shields to protect their school uniforms.
"This is a great school. We're really impressed," Bush told the kids shortly after.
Nationally, test scores back Bush's claims of progress -- but only in part.
In 2005, fourth-graders and eighth-graders posted their highest math scores on a federal test, and black and Hispanic children narrowed their gap with whites in both math and reading.
But the fourth-grade reading performance was essentially flat, and in eighth grade, reading scores actually dropped.
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