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GEORGE
BUSH RAISED STANDARDS IN TEXAS AND TEST SCORES SOARED
Texas
Schools Improved Dramatically Under Bush. "Public
schools in Texas have improved dramatically on Bush’s watch.
. . . Black and Latino children have made galloping gains in math
and reading scores during his years in office, narrowing the achievement
gap that bedevils school systems around the country."
(Eric Pooley, "Who Gets the ‘A’ in Education? Surprise:
Bush May Have A Leg Up On Gore When It Comes To Raising Standards
And Getting Results In Schools," Time, March 27, 2000)
Time
Magazine Praised George Bush’s "Plan For Comprehensive
School Reform." "[Bush] has a plan
for comprehensive school reform--flexibility and local control coupled
with high standards and consequences for failure--and Gore, so far,
does not. . . . When Bush’s education team put together his
plan, it drew not only from Texas but also from a more surprising
source--the Progressive Policy Institute. Last April the New Democrats’
think tank kicked out a proposal for consolidating federal education
spending into five broad categories while giving states far more
flexibility as long as they met achievement goals. It also called
for Washington to embrace ‘performance-based funding’--cutting
administrative aid to districts that consistently fail. When Bush
unveiled his plan last fall, it bore a striking resemblance to the
Institute’s--the same consolidation ideas, the same kind of
sanctions. ‘I can’t criticize his plan because it’s
ours,’ says Marshall." (Eric
Pooley, "Who Gets The ‘A’ In Education? Surprise:
Bush May Have A Leg Up On Gore When It Comes To Raising Standards
And Getting Results In Schools," Time, March 27, 2000)
Before He
Joined The Gore Ticket, Even Joe Lieberman Praised The Bush Education
Agenda. Joe Lieberman: "We are encouraged
by the fact that Governor Bush of Texas has proposed a reform plan
that is remarkably similar to our [three R’s] proposal."
(NBC’s
"Meet the Press," August 13, 2000)
African-American
4th Graders In Texas 1st In Math.
African-American 4th graders
in Texas ranked 1st in the nation in math; since 1992,
African-American 4th graders in Texas have made the greatest
gains in math, and Hispanic 4th graders have made the
second greatest gains. (NAEP
Math 1996; "Education Watch 1998," The Education Trust,
p. 23)
African-American
And Hispanic 8th Graders In Texas Ranked 1st
And 2nd Respectively On National Writing Assessments.
Texas 8th graders as a whole ranked 4th
in the nation. (NAEP
Writing 1998)
From 1995
To 2000, The Number Of Students Passing Every Part Of The Texas
Assessment Of Academic Skills Test Increased From 53 Percent To
80 Percent. (Texas
Education Agency)
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