Bush Hits Ohio With Testing Push, Activists Fight Back

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@EARTHLINK.NET>]

        BUSH ON SCHOOLS: CONSEQUENCE MUST FOLLOW FAILURE
              Associated Press -- February 20, 2001
                     by Andrew Welsh-Huggins

    COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An urban elementary school where proficiency
test scores are rising and executives volunteer as reading tutors
provided the backdrop Tuesday for President Bush to talk about
education.
    Using a round-table discussion at Sullivant Elementary School to
promote his plan to tie federal funds to student performance, Bush said,
``If we find failure there must be consequence.''
    The president mixed policy talk with banter, addressing his hosts as
old pals.
    ``Are you with me, Pat? I'm not putting any pressure on you,'' Bush
asked Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Ohio, who responded by echoing the president's
position.
    ``What do you think, gov?'' Bush asked Gov. Bob Taft as the program
ended. Taft helped deliver Ohio to Bush in the election, and Bush repaid
the favor by praising state and local officials who are struggling with
a school funding system twice declared unconstitutional and complaints
about proficiency testing.
    Bush emphasized the importance of some form of standardized testing.
    ``The true agent of reform is accountability to measure on a
child-by-child basis, then to correct problems on a child-by-child
basis,'' Bush said.
    Bush's education plan would pull federal dollars from schools that
fail three years in a row, allowing students to use that money to enroll
elsewhere.
    ``I believe the best program is that which allows parents to make
other choices,'' he said.
    Four people across the street from the school protested Bush's plans
to increase standardized testing. ``We want the president to back off
and leave our kids alone,'' said Mary O'Brien, a parent in suburban
Columbus and a member of a group that opposes Ohio's proficiency tests
as unfair and inaccurate.
    ``Let's work with the education professionals, not the
'testocrats,''' O'Brien said.
    Bush spoke in favor of local control of education, saying that
challenges differ among communities.
    ``I can assure you the schools in Columbus, Ohio, are very different
from the schools in Laredo, Texas,'' he said.
    Sullivant Elementary is a school with mostly low-income students
that emphasizes reading and writing.
    Bush introduced a parent he said had given him ``an earful'' during
a school tour about her son's success at Sullivant.
    Brenda Seffrin, 31, said her son, Johnathan, was evaluated as
learning disabled in first grade but has thrived at Sullivant because he
is tutored daily in reading.
    ``This school is amazing and I owe it all to this school,'' she
said.
    During the past three years, the percentage of Sullivant students
who passed the reading test has risen from 16 percent to 27 percent to
36 percent. The state average is 59 percent.
    The percentage of students who passed the writing test increased 15
percentage points last year to 58 percent, 6 percentage points lower
than the state average. The writing scores were about 43 percent the
previous two years.
    The school also participates in ColumbusReads, in which volunteers
tutor children in reading. Four days a week, reading volunteers from the
Limited Inc. tutor each of the school's 75 kindergartners for 30
minutes.
    Sullivant has about 350 students, almost evenly split between black
and white children.
    Parents dropping their children off for classes Tuesday praised the
school and the attention paid to students.
    Shaunte Wells, 21, said her 6-year-old daughter, Denisha, is
privately tutored in reading for half an hour twice a week. ``They show
they care, they care what happens to their children's future,'' Wells
said. ``The whole staff is excellent.''
    Other parents contrasted the school's achievement with the dangerous
surrounding neighborhood near the city's downtown.
    ``A month and a half ago the kids couldn't come home from school
because there was a shootout,'' said Tony Bumpus, 31, a laid-off factory
worker whose two sons attend the school.

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