No Child Left Behind drives education debate

WASHINGTON – President Bush asked for it. Sen. John Kerry voted for it. Both candidates now find their education agendas driven by the No Child Left Behind law.

The most aggressive shake-up of schools in a generation, the law is the top education issue in a presidential race dominated by war, terrorism, jobs, taxes and credibility. The law orders schools to ensure that all children achieve regardless of race, ethnicity or income.

For voters, the line dividing Bush and Kerry is subtle. The nominees diverge on how much to spend on the law and how much to tinker with it as schools try to comply.

The Republican incumbent promotes his spending record. He also says it is time to expand the law by requiring two more years of state math and reading tests in high school.

Kerry say schools need much more money to meet high standards. He promises an extra $10 billion a year by erasing Bush’s tax cuts for people earning more than $200,000 a year. The Massachusetts senator also talks of expanding the way student progress is measured in a law built on testing.

Both candidates have ideas all along the education spectrum, from college aid and teacher pay to high school rigor and math and science classes. Some ideas are modest; others would continue an expanding federal role in schools.

Yet, all this is largely unnoticed by voters and lightly mentioned by the candidates, even though the next president will take on a backlog of school matters affecting millions of people.

The result has been a different campaign than the one four years ago. In 2000, Bush was Texas governor and made education a successful theme of his presidential bid. In office, he won bipartisan support in 2001 for the No Child Left Behind law, which calls for all students to reach state standards in reading and math by 2014. Parents get more school choices, but many schools face penalties if even a single subgroup of students falls short.

The law has not been a clear boon for Bush. States have balked at what they call federal intrusion. Some parents are perplexed to see their schools labeled as “needing improvement” under the law even if those same schools get stellar marks from their states.

Under Bush, spending on the law’s programs and on help for disabled children has grown from $24.7 billion to $35.5 billion, a 43 percent increase. Counting his current budget request, the increase during his term would be 49 percent, a number he cites while campaigning. But those figures would not be as high if Congress had not added billions to Bush’s requests.

Democrats say Bush has shortchanged the law by up to $28 billion. They say everything from teaching to testing has suffered.