8-18 Media team interviewing Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
Education, a prominent issue at previous political conventions, took a back seat this year. At the Republican National Convention in New York City, site of the 9/11 terrorist attack, speeches centered around homeland security and foreign policy. In President George W. Bush's acceptance speech, education was just a side note.
This is in contrast to Bush's 2000 campaign which focused significantly on education reform. When Bush was elected, he began to push through the sweeping No Child Left Behind bill. Passed in January 2002, the act overhauled the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. No Child Left Behind is built on the principle that local districts have control and flexibility over their funding but are held accountable for their schools' performance based on student testing.
Support for No Child Left Behind
The law has its share of critics. Some are opposed to its emphasis on testing. Some say it siphons funds away from schools that need it most. Others, including Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, say it is underfunded.
8-18 Media talked to Republican leaders at the convention about this controversial law.
Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tenessee is a member of the Committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and currently serves as the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families. Alexander supports No Child Left Behind because he says it allocates money more directly to school districts.
"For me, it represents the outer limits of what the federal government ought to be doing to try to tell state and local government what to do about schools," Alexander said. "But it addresses the need that we need to be honest about, which is that we've been passing a lot of children through our schools, many of them poor children and not helping them learn and if we don't, they'll never succeed."
Secretary of Energy and former Michigan Senator Spencer Abraham feels that every school in this country should provide kids with the best possible education and the brightest future. According to Abraham, No Child Left Behind does just that.
"No Child Left Behind is designed to make sure that kids have the best possible resources available and that we really measure how successful our schools are so that we don't have some schools that are falling behind the other ones," he said.
Standards, Accountability and Choice
Alan Keyes, candidate for Senate in Illinois, says he doesn't necessarily support the act, but he supports the theory behind it.
"I support the need for standards in our schools and I think that those standards can be best effected by empowering parents through school choice to make sure that schools are held responsible for their results," Keyes said.
J.C. Watts, former Oklahoma Congressman and University of Oklahoma star quarterback, says the act is a good piece of legislation. He believes the accountability and testing aspects have been misunderstood. He has his own way of explaining the act.
"When I was a quarterback, everytime I took a snap they scored me. After the game, you go and look at your score to see if you were successful, to see if you executed properly," Watts explained. "Are we saying that it's more important to test J.C. and know how well J.C. Watts as a quarterback is doing, but we're not going to be concerned about how well we can read and write and do arithmetic? I think somehow we have to figure out how do we do this in a way that we're going to know how well kids are learning. We want no child, in spite of where they're from and what their skin color or what their gender, to be left behind when it comes to reading, writing and arithmetic."
Too Much Testing?
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin supports the act, but he voted against the testing component. Wisconsin already does sufficient testing, he says.
"My concern with the testing is that it moves toward a nationalized curriculum," he said. "But the reason I voted for it, is all the extra local control that it does. No Child Left Behind gives local school districts so much more latitude and control in customizing their education game plan. That's exactly what I believe in in education, which is decentralizing it so that the decision makers, teachers, principals, school administrators, school board members who know the children best, who know the problems in their local communities the most, are the ones who get to make the decisions on how to craft these programs."
Md. Lt. Gov. Michael Steele believes that the testing component is crucial because it monitors if the students meet the standards.
"There are various tests that you can give students to monitor to see, OK at this level do you meet this standard," said Steele. "There are various other types of examinations that don't involve testing, such as practice drills. I think there are a variety of ways in which we can monitor how a student is performing and that's all a part of making sure we're getting the job done. Certainly, having qualified teachers in place begins that process."
No Child Left Behind calls for a highly qualified teacher in every public school classroom in America by the year 2005. Alexander says that it's a worthy goal.
"Obviously in our country, we never quite meet our goals and we always struggle to meet our goals and most of our politics is about dealing with disappointment when we don't," Alexander said. "So, will every child learn perfectly? No. Will every teacher be highly qualified? No. Is it right to set the goals that they should be? I think the answer is yes."
This story was written by Andrew LaCombe, 14, of 8-18 Media. Interviews were conducted by LaCombe, Kristie Tonge, 17; Danielle Thoune, 14, and Carlie Coccia, 10, of 8-18 Media.
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