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R c r o i r e i : Jaymee R. Cuti
Fix and Fund Education
Economic Outlook is Not Good
‘No Child Left Behind’ Needs Help
O rd in a r y
by J udge
G reg M athis
The “ No Chi Id Left Be
hind Law ” continues to
be one o f the most con
troversial pieces o f leg
islation initiated by the
B ush A dm inistration.
T he law requires in
creased student testing
an d se v e re c o n s e
q u e n c e s fo r sc h o o ls
whose students fail to
steadily improve. If stu
dent test scores don’t improve over sev
eral years, the students are allowed to
transfer to another school, and teachers
and adm inistrators at the failing school
can be replaced.
At first glance the law appears to be a
good thing. Certainly we want to see steady
student im provem ent, and we want sub
standard schools and faculty to be re
trained or w eeded out o f the system. The
problem with the law is that the new re
quirem ents for testing provide little money
to assist school districts in meeting the
dem ands o f the federal government.
W e know many o f children are failing.
W e d on’t need more tests to tell us that.
W e need more money and resources for
our schools. Parents and educators have
consistently stated that smaller classroom
sizes, teacher retraining and curriculum
and technology enhancem ents are the
m ost necessary ingredients for student
success. Parents, educators
and state officials throughout
the country are com plaining
that the “N oC hild Left Behind
Law” is too cum bersom e and
needs to be “fixed and funded."
Acknow ledging shortcom
ings in the law, the Federal
E d u c a tio n d e p a rtm e n t re
cen tly an n o u n ced ch a n g es
relaxing some o f the stringent
requirem ents forteacher quali
fications. Clearly the adm inis
tration recognized that you co u ld n 't ex
pect better-trained teachers unless we
better invest in teacher retraining, con
tinuing education and more com petitive
salaries.
H opefully, the recently announced
changes are the beginning o f an honest
and sincere effort to invest the necessary
money and resources to improve student
achievem ent. Playing give and take with
an education law that gives no additional
money to fund its requirem ents is nothing
more than sm oke and mirrors. Perhaps the
adm inistration should use the same strat
egy in rebuilding our education system as
it uses in rebuilding Iraq. There, our ad
m inistration is not only fixing the laws in
Iraq but they are also funding them.
Judge Greg Mathis is Chairman o f the
Rainbow PUSH-Excel Board and a Na
tional Board Member o f the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference.
A m e ric a n s h a ve
reason to w o r r y
B ernice P owell J ackson
If you only read the new spapers,
watch television or listen to Bush ad
ministration officials, you would think
that the econom y is rosy and
all is right with the econom ic
world. You would never know
that millions o f A m ericans are
still out o f work, with some 2
mi II ion o f them out o f work for
two years or more. You would
never know that m illions of
Am ericans have ju st given up
on finding work and therefore
are not counted in any o f the
unem ploym ent figures. You
w ould never know that m il
lions o f A m ericans w ho lost their jobs
and have found new ones are now earn
ing low er salaries with few er benefits.
But the econom y is on an upturn, they
say. Not to worry.
But m illions o f ordinary Am ericans
do worry. They worry about how they
will pay their m ortgage or their rent or
w hat will happen if som eone in their
family gets sick. For the past 42 months,
factories and plants have closed in cit
ies across the nation, with many of
these jobs moving across the world.
These m anufacturing and textile jobs
by
will never return. Not even Levi jean s are
m ade in America anym ore. A dded to that
reality is the growing outsourcing o f white
collar internet and engineering jo b s in far
aw ay places. Even A m erican Express and
A m erica On Line are not all Am erican
anym ore. Indeed, our nation has experi
enced the greatest sustained jo b loss since
the G reat Depression over the past three
years.
Even American
Express and
America On Line
are not all
American anymore.
- B ern ic e P ow ell Jackson
The federal budget that was ju st pro
posed by President Bush to the Congress
was called a “Pinocchio budget” by the
N. Y. Times editorial page a few weeks ago,
pointing to the m isleading figures o f that
budget, including the hundreds o f million
dollars for Iraq and A fghanistan occupa
tion and re-building w hich was conve
niently left out altogether. W hile Presi
dent Bush has show n some indication
that he wants to seem concerned about
what some cal I the hemorrhagi ng o f Am eri
can jobs. For instance, he recently visited
a com m unity college and pledged new
funds for the retrain in g o f American work
ers under his “Jobs for the 21 st C entury”
initiative. Yet a few w eeks later, when
elated com m unity college officials looked
at the budget proposals, they realized that
the federal dollars proposed w ould not
even cover the state budget cuts they
have ju st experienced.
Whi le w ealthier A m ericans have expe
rienced gains in income due to incom e tax
cuts targeted for the wealthy, m iddle and
low er income A m ericans have seen no
increase in the m inim um w age for several
years.
Even as the adm inistration has an
nounced dozens o f budget cuts in educa
tion, housing and environm ental protec
tion, the reality is that the non-defense,
non-hom eland security costs that they
plan to cut account for only one-sixth o f
the budget. W e know, in addition, that the
total costs for M edicare prescription drug
plans and the Social Security pay-outs for
baby boom er will hit in the next five years
or so. There will be no way for our children
and their children to pay back all o f these
dollars, even if we have boom tim es for the
next 20 years.
We m ust require that both Republican
and D em ocratic candidates for President
and Congress com e clean about the bud
get. We deserve the truth and our children
deserve a budget w hich is not balanced on
their backs.
Bernice Powell Jackson is the execu
tive minister o f Justice and Witness Min
istries fo r the United Church o f Christ.
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