Education Sec'y Tells HBCU Heads To Stand Up For Children
In Response, CBC Head Blasts Sessions Speech As Rhetoric Without Resources
WASHINGTON—U.S. Dept. of Education Secretary Margaret Spellings Thursday called on presidents of the nation's historically Black colleges and universities to ignore the naysayers who criticize the Bush administration’s efforts to make sure that every child receives an equal education.
"We must stand up for these kids," the newly appointed cabinet official declared to the summit of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, the organization that represents the nation's 118 historically Black colleges and universities. She said that they can't let other voices drown out the needs of America's children.
These "other voices" must have included Mel Watt (D-N.C.), head of the Congressional Black Caucus, who called Bush's No Child Left Behind education initiative "the silent bigotry of forgetfulness and the arrogant bigotry of entitlement"—a wordplay on Bush's now-famous "soft bigotry of low expectations" criticism of those who stand against standardized testing. Watts's speech immediately followed Spellings's.
The two views clashed as No Child Left Behind is under increasing attack. The day before the speeches at the NAFEO conference, the National Education Association, filed a lawsuit against Spellings in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
The suit argues that NCLB is several billion dollars short, leaving cash-strapped states to fill in the difference. As of this writing, 21 states have attempted to change NCLB, which, as currently proposed, would cut the budget of nearly 50 federal educational programs while requiring testing and other requirements to insist that America's children are all at their proper grade level by 2014.
Among those programs the Bush administration would like to slash are Upward Bound and Talent Search, high school programs that prepare disadvantaged youth for college life. Those programs, a legacy of the War On Poverty era, are considered by their proponents a necessary bridge from high school to college. So do many HBCUs, who are among those colleges and universities that host the programs on their campuses.
Spellings--who reminded the audience that President Bush's 2006 budget calls for $300 million in funds to be targeted to HBCUs, an increase from last year's $240 million--said Thursday she thought it was wrong for those states to interfere with the education of their children at a time when "80 percent of our fastest-growing jobs require at least two years of college."
But Watt, in his speech, echoed the many naysayers who said that NCLB is all diagnosis and no money for treatment. "This administration is good at describing the problem," said the CBC leader. "[But] at the end of the day, if we don't have the resources, re-authorizing a bill doesn't mean a hill of beans."
The North Carolina congressman pointed out that NCLB could be fully funded if the adminstration reneged on its promise of proposing a tax cut for those making more than $200,000 a year. "We said, 'make the choice,'" he said, referring to his CBC colleagues’ alternative proposed 2006 budget.
Meanwhile, Watt’s CBC colleague, U.S. Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) and U.S. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) urged the gathering to support a bill that would appropriate $2.5 billion in federal funds over the next five years to beef up technology in HBCUs and other academic institutions serving populations of color. The House version of the bill is currently in the House Education and the Workforce committee.
Allen, who introduced the bill on the Senate side, said if it passes both houses and is signed by President Bush this term, the money would be available next year.
"The longer we wait, the further we fall behind," he said.
Said Towns, one of the bill's 15 sponsors in the House: "We are pounding the pavement to push the bill forward."
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Audio Clips Available:
www.hbcuconnect.com/nafeo
Posted By: Will Moss
Wednesday, April 27th 2005 at 4:40AM
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