Presidential Candidates Seek ‘Educated’ Voters

By. Vanessa St. LegerNNPA Special Contributor WASHINGTON (NNPA) – With little attention being placed on education by the presidential campaigns, many Black educators fear that their issues and that of America’s children will go unnoticed on Election Day.”Education should be at the core of every conversation pertaining to the elections,” says Lunine Pierre-Jerome, a literacy specialist for Boston public schools. “They have to put our children at the forefront of their discussions as they are the future of this country.”President Bush and his Democratic challenger, John Kerry differ on many of the domestic issues facing the nation but none as striking as their opinions and policies towards the future of the public education system.Bush, the self-proclaimed education president, has touted his No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, a reform of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) Act, declaring it to be the cornerstone of his administration. However, two years into its implementation, educators complain about program slashing, rising teacher frustration, unsuccessful testing and uneven reform. Some share the sentiment, if not the words, of former Democratic presidential Carol Mosley Braun who says “No Child Left Behind” should be more aptly named “No Behind Left.”Many in the field agree.”This law is a one size fits all approach to learning,” says Reg Weaver, the president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union. “All kids can not learn at the same rates, at same speed, same time.” There is agreement on the West Coast.”No Child Left Behind does a good job at doing nothing but adding more to a teacher’s workload,” says Marilyn Jacoby, an educator in California’s Orange County. “It creates more bureaucracy and paperwork and less attention to our failing students, specifically those in urban neighborhoods.”And plenty of them are failing.The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University found that only 50 percent of Blacks graduate from high school within the allotted four years. In addition urban youth are two times more likely to drop out of school than non-urban youth. Educators say the laws has some unintended consequences.”No Child forces teachers to teach to the test and testing can’t tell the whole story,” says Pierre-Jerome, the Boston educator. “Students are learning for a test taking at the end of the year rather than to gain information to use for a lifetime. The tests are culturally-biased and don’t speak to a diverse community.”Both students and teachers are feeling pressure.”Student are constantly in fear of failing and teachers of losing their jobs. If things continue in this path, it will me the end of the public school system as we know it,” says Jacoby, who has taught elementary English for the past eight years.The NEA has been traveling throughout the nation, advocating reform to the plan. In September, they held the Mobilization for Great Public Schools conference and have held more than 3,800 house parties in support of better education policies.Since 2002, the year President Bush signed No Child Left Behind, none of his budgets have come close to meeting the level of funding authorized by Congress. In February of 2003, National Governors Association, a bipartisan committee, voted unanimously to label NCLB an unfunded mandate, meaning requirements were passed on but no sufficient funding. “The law is flawed in that it does not have enough flexibility,” says Weaver, who is currently on a bus tour of Florida to advocate for policy changes and to highlight the importance of education. “It contains inaccurate definitions of both qualified teachers and what constitutes yearly progress. It is not fully funded and does not support professionals in the act of teaching.”There are some positive byproducts of the law as well.A report titled, “Beating the Odds,” conducted by the Council of the Great City Schools shows higher scoring on all levels of English and mathematics. Between 2002 and 2003, the study finds an overall increase of 72.2 percent of all grades tested improved for Black students in mathematics and a 70.1 percent increase in reading. Similar results were found by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).Weaver does not attribute that progress solely to the new federal law.”Anybody that knows much of the educational system knows that the improvements started before No Child Left Behind,” he says. “They are just beginning to be seen.” If elected, John Kerry promises to reform the No Child Left Behind Act. While supporting higher educational standards, he maintains that every school should have the resources and the responsibility to meet those standards. Kerry wants to establish a National Education Trust Fund, to ensure that funding is always available for education. He has promised $3.5 million for after school programs and allowing parents to deduct the cost of college tuition on their taxes. The NEA’s Weaver suggests that Americans watch with a critical eye.He says, “Beware of the people who promise one thing and whose actions declare something else.”