Spellings calls for some interesting changes: merit pay for teachers in districts with "challenging" schools, overriding teachers union contracts when they conflict with NCLB sanctions and more assessments of students' progress in high school. It's not at all clear that Kennedy and Miller are going to oppose all such changes (though the teachers unions will press them to oppose the second).
Their support of the 2001 legislation represented a sharp shift from the Democrats' approach to the 1994 reauthorization, which added more money but did little about accountability. Kennedy and Miller, impressed by the success of state accountability programs in the intervening years and acting out of a heartfelt conviction that schools without accountability were poorly serving disadvantaged children, led their party to a sharp change on policy.
But more progress is needed. Something more needs to be done about the 15 percent of high schools that produce 50 percent of high school dropouts. Only about half the blacks and Hispanics who enter high school graduate within four years. Kennedy and Miller seem willing to plunge ahead with elaborate hearings, and my sense, based on observing them over many years, is that they will be not only open, but inclined, to support many tougher accountability measures. They proved that in their work on the bill in 2001.
It's also my sense that Spellings, Enzi and McKeon are open to more funding. The Bush budget already adds $1.2 billion for Title I aid to disadvantaged schools, $500 million for low-performing schools and $600 million for tuition to alternatives to failing schools.
The fact is that our schools are not as good as they could be. This doesn't hurt kids from affluent, stable, book-filled households too much -- they're mostly going to do well even if they go to mediocre schools. But it does hurt kids from low-earning, single-parent, bookless households who fall behind in poor schools and too often never reach their potential. It would help them if these Democrats and Republicans could once again reach a deal. Let's hope the insiders are wrong on this one.
Michael Barone
Michael Barone, senior political analyst for The Washington Examiner (
www.washingtonexaminer.com), is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. To find out more about Michael Barone, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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