George W. Bush's position on

Education K-12: On January 8, 2002 President Bush signed "No Child Left Behind," which Kerry voted for. This act was created to reform education on the kindergarten through 12th grade level. The "No Child Left Behind" Act is a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the central federal law is pre-collegiate education. The goal of this law was to make schools accountable and reduce achievement gaps between schools and students; however this law has not been fully funded at this time. Federal spending on elementary and secondary education increased from 18.5 billion in 2001 to 22.5 billion requested in 2005. Overall, funds related to No Child Left Behind increased by an average of 12.5 percent per year from 2001 to 2005. NCLB discretionary spending was 17.4 billion in 2001, and the administration requested 24.8 billion in 2005. Elementary and secondary education spending not related to NCLB or IDEA actually fell from 3.2 billion to 1.7 billion from 2001 to 2005, which suggests that a small portion of the 12.2 billion increase in combined NCLB and IDEA represents a shift in spending, rather than all new spending. link

Description of candidate's position: Bush supported this act because of what he felt was a need for change in the education system. In Bush's acceptance he did briefly discuss "No Child Left Behind" and what it was accomplishing. There was no mention of school vouchers in the speech, which would point the priority of vouchers as being less than that of "No Child Left Behind."

Quotation from the candidate: "All skills start with education. My administration has put education at the top of the agenda. We passed the No Child Left Behind Act -- we passed the No Child Left Behind Act, a good law that is bringing higher standards and accountability to every public school in America. We have a plan to help high school students who fall behind in reading and math. We have a plan to help community colleges train workers for the industries that are creating the most new jobs. We are strongly committed to education because we believe everyone in America should have a chance to learn and to succeed, and to realize the great promise of our country." February 23, 2004 Bush's Acceptance Speech Link.

Assessment of the proposal:

Positive: The CATO Institute, which tends to lean conservative and support Republican candidates, seems to support Bush when it comes to Education reform. With that said they seemed to be choosing him as the candidate because they disagree with him the least. This is because of their strong opposition to federal involvement on a number of different issues.

Negative: The CATO Institute argues No Child Left Behind and the increase in mandated testing is not what the country needs in terms of school reform. They suggest that what is needed is more local control of educational decisions. They also state that by making Washington the judge of the performance of public schools advances an ominous trend toward centralization that has been occurring for decades.

Comparison: Both Kerry and Bush see K-12 education as an issue which needs work, but disagree how best to improve education. Kerry does support the No Child Left Behind Act, but feels that the program should be fully funded. In addition Kerry would also like to create a $200 billion National Education Trust fund, which would be separately funded and as Kerry sees it, ensure that new education programs would be funded on a mandatory basis. Kerry has stated that he supports the barring of school vouchers, because he sees vouchers as taking funding away from schools which usually need it most. Bush supports the use of vouchers as a way for parents to make choices about their children's education.

Unlike Bush, Kerry wants a dedicated funding stream to achieve NCLB and IDEA goals. Federal funding for education would shift from discretionary to mandatory spending making it less likely that such funding would be cut as part of the annual battle over appropriations. Neither candidate differs greatly on the key provisions of NCLB…Kerry would guarantee mandatory funding levels to states, which could help states better plan for ways to meet NCLB requirements. Creating mandatory spending stream would also protect education to some extent from future budget cuts. link

Link to Kerry's issue page

Link to Kerry's education issue page