Bush's High School Reform Appears Dead on Arrival

From the Friday, May 6 edition of Education Daily:

Bush's High School Reform Appears Dead on Arrival

Lawmakers say president.s timing was bad, no legislation will be introduced

Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Education and the Workforce
Committee, said yesterday there won't be any legislation to authorize
President Bush's high school reform initiative emerging from the committee
this year. Boehner and Education Reform Subcommittee Chairman Mike Castle,
R-Del., said they support in principle the administration's ideas to reform
high schools, but it was too early to expand No Child Left Behind Act
testing into high schools. "With all due respect to the president's
pronouncements ... to moving No Child Left Behind to high schools, I'm not
too sure we're ready to create legislation on that," Castle said. He said he
wasn't exactly sure how to extend NCLB into high schools, and, "frankly,
there's political opposition to that, and it's not just democrats."

Setting the stage

Nevertheless, Boehner said the committee will hold several hearings on
reforming high schools this year, the first tentatively scheduled for next
week. The hearings may lead to a push for legislation next year, he added.
President Bush announced his $1.5 billion high school reform initiative
earlier this year (ED, Jan. 13) and said several times during the 2004
presidential campaign that he would like to expand NCLB testing in secondary
schools (ED, Nov. 4). The administration also proposed folding the popular
Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education funding into the
initiative, which now looks highly unlikely after the strong support the
reauthorization received in the House and Senate (ED, May 5). Castle said
that little in terms of concrete proposals came from the administration
after the announcement. "There are not fundamental differences in doing what
the president wants, it's just going to take longer to do it," he said.
-Stew Magnuson