Flying in the face of a bipartisan panel of legislatures from many states expressing harsh criticism of NCLB, Jeb Bush displays unabashed nepotism by following his brother’s Texas initiative. In lieu of facing up to the challenge of “failing” schools by lobbying for the tried and true formula of Title I, the program that was designed to assist schools in dire need, the governor, tail between his legs, scampers off with the solution of private school vouchers that have in no stretch of the imagination proven to be the wherewithal.

Know since the 60s that the problem is substantive strategies are lacking — let’s face it — in schools of disproportionate minorities plagued by disadvantages of poverty, home support and language. The majority of students are products of suburban and some city schools that for years have benefited from more generous funding so that it incrementally at least has made strides in solving inadequacies of curriculum, instruction and supportive personnel for individualized learning.

NCLB came onto the scene as just another ruse of “crisis” as though all 15,000 districts in the nation had been lethargic in their dedication of meeting the needs of children — how insulting, the forest for the trees! Failing students, not failing schools were always the problem every teacher agonized over. The profession had been uplifted in the Johnson years of Title I being fully funded until the roadblock of the Vietnam War. For thirty-five years Congress has never lived up to this commitment to the disadvantaged child who continues to suffer through this shameful neglect.

Jeb Bush emphasizes this perennial neglect by the deception that “vouchers” unrealistically doled out to 10,000 of the 170,000 “eligible” will somehow change the momentum of failure. The remaining 160,000 are glibly left to the “failing schools,” let alone that the 10,000 disadvantaged will place the parents in further financial straits in trying to make up the difference. Even worse, are vouchers to those barely failing whose parents are financially better off to make up the out-of- pocket costs.

When there is a teacher shortage, school districts have always offered incentives during recruitment but not by upsetting union contracts but by fudging the pay scale in acknowledging the “experience” scale in business or the armed services and simply by incentives for continuing education and in-service credits for certification. Bush’s suggestion to award the better principals $5,000 bonuses can only lead to subjective inequality and resentment. Being principal is its own reward and need not be treated as a phony CEO, rather than the best educator in the building already reflected in his or her salary. If he or she is not, the contract is not renewed.

As for the middle school becoming more like a high school, J Bush misses the mark: if anything middle school should be more like grade school up to and including seventh grade and more like junior high for grades 8 and 9 wherein there is the gradual introduction to specialization in Math, Science, foreign language and the Arts to prepare them for high school academics — not as it is now in the middle school delusion of preemptive socialization as high school neophytes.

The worst governor proposal is the rollback of mandatory class size. True, there is no question that the mandate is unyielding and should be modified, but not as an unwholesome motive to save money. Changing the class reduction of K-3 should be further reduced to twelve and fifteen for 4-7 in which the pupils would receive greater individualized instruction, along with a curricula designed to give more attention to the three Rs, along with story telling and play acting, perhaps even after school. The higher grades 8-12, averaging 30 in a class, would be more manageable as the lower grades come of age to step in far more prepared and motivated to handle material that matters most, rather than the governor’s plan to handle what matters most to his brother’s scam.

Copyright © 2005 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: February 25, 2005.

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