AP: Bush to Seek Renewal of Education Law (NCLB)

Bush to Seek Renewal of Education Law


Thursday January 4, 2007 9:01 AM

AP Photo DCPM104

By NANCY ZUCKERBROD

AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush plans to meet with lawmakers next week to boost
efforts to renew the No Child Left Behind education law, according to a Democratic
congressional aide.

The top Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate committees that deal with
education issues planned to attend the White House meeting Monday, the aide said on
the condition of anonymity because the White House had not announced the session.

Monday is also the day the Bush administration is commemorating the fifth anniversary
of what is widely considered the most significant federal education law in decades.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, in an interview with The Associated Press on
Wednesday, said she was optimistic the law would be renewed for five more years.
She said it is a natural issue on which Bush and Democrats, who won control of Congress
in November, can come together.

-snip-

Houston's 'Zero Dropout'
Fall 2003
By Michael Winerip

Robert Kimball, an assistant principal at Sharpstown High School, sat smack in the middle of the "Texas miracle." His poor, mostly minority high school of 1,650 students had a freshman class of 1,000 that dwindled to fewer than 300 students by senior year. And yet — and this is the miracle — not one dropout to report!

Nor was zero an unusual dropout rate in this school district that both President Bush and Secretary of Education Rod Paige have held up as the national showcase for accountability and the model for the federal No Child Left Behind law. Westside High here had 2,308 students and no reported dropouts; Wheatley High 731 students, no dropouts. A dozen of the city's poorest schools reported dropout rates under one percent.

Now, Dr. Kimball has witnessed many amazing things in his 58 years. Before he was an educator, he spent 24 years in the Army, fighting in Vietnam, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel and touring the world. But never had he seen an urban high school with no dropouts. "Impossible," he said. "Someone will get pregnant, go to jail, get killed." Elsewhere in the nation, urban high schools report dropout rates of 20 percent to 40 percent.

A miracle? "A fantasy land," said Dr. Kimball. "They want the data to look wonderful and exciting. They don't tell you how to do it; they just say, 'Do it.'" In February, with the help of Dr. Kimball, the local television station KHOU broke the news that Sharpstown High had falsified its dropout data. That led to a state audit of 16 Houston schools, which found that of 5,500 teenagers surveyed who had left school, 3,000 should have been counted as dropouts but were not. In early August, the state appointed a monitor to oversee the district's data collection and downgraded 14 audited schools to the state's lowest rating ...

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/special_reports/bushplan/drop181.shtml

Paige calls NEA 'terrorist organization'
From John King
CNN Washington Bureau
Monday, February 23, 2004 Posted: 7:12 PM EST (0012 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization" Monday ...

In his written release, Secretary Paige said: "It was .. to describe the obstructionist scare tactics the NEA's Washington lobbyists have employed against No Child Left Behind's historic education reforms ...

http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/02/23/paige.terrorist.nea/