Politics

Bush Pushes Education Agenda

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

January 25, 2001 / 3:04 PM EST / CBS

President Bush toured a Washington school Thursday to highlight his plans to reform public education, bringing along two Democrats who will be crucial to how his program fares in Congress.

The president held up Washington's Merritt Elementary School as a model of the testing and accountability that he wants to bring to the nation's public schools with his multibillion dollar education reform package, his top legislative priority.

"We're here to applaud a school in a district that has got a vision … of high standards and strong measurement systems; a school that not only measures, but when it finds deficiency, corrects," Mr. Bush told teachers and parents.

Accountability is a central plank of the education reform blueprint Mr. Bush submitted to Congress Tuesday as his first legislation since assuming office last Saturday.

The bill would require annual testing of student performance, require states to develop performance-linked rewards and sanctions for schools, and implement a voucher-style program to help students in failing schools move to private schools.

"Accountability is not a tool to punish, but a tool to reward and a tool necessary to correct deficiencies," Mr. Bush said. "It's a positive tool."

Accompanied by his wife Laura, the president toured the school, which is in a northeast Washington neighborhood of small homes, some of them with peeling paint and boarded-up windows.

In a sign the Republican president's plan may be winning bipartisan support, Democrats Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Rep. George Miller of California accompanied Mr. Bush to the school.

Mr. Bush has been reaching out to Democrats, inviting their House and Senate leaders to the White House Wednesday and scheduling a meeting with lawmakers interested in education Thursday.

Kennedy and Miller are the ranking Democrats on the Senate and House committees that oversee education policy and will be key players in how the president's legislation fares in Congress.

The committees' Republican chairmen, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont and Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, also joined Mr. Bush at the school.

Also Thursday, the White House seized on testimony by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan to Congress on the potential benefits of cutting taxes, saying it bolstered the president's $1.6 trillion tax cut plan.

Greenspan told the Senate Budget Committee that the economy had slowed dramatically and that having a tax cut in place could do "noticeable good" if the economic slowdown worsened. Spokesman Ari Fleischer said the White House was "heartened to see that Chairman Greenspan ha weighed in on the importance of cutting taxes."

Fleischer also announced that Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien will become the first foreign leader to meet Mr. Bush when he visits Washington on Feb. 5. Fleischer said they would discuss a wide range of bilateral issues between two strong allies.

The Chretien visit will precede Mr. Bush's first foreign trip. He is scheduled to go to Mexico Feb. 16 for talks with new Mexican President Vicente Fox.

Recent U.S. presidents have tended to make their first foreign visits abroad to Canada. But Mr. Bush will break with that tradition by going to Mexico.