Bush education summit leaves Collins upbeat

WASHINGTON – When Sen. Susan M. Collins flew to Texas to meet with President-elect George W. Bush, she carried one key pledge: Help special education students.

By the end of the day Thursday, she said, Maine’s junior senator came away with the feeling that Bush was listening, and that he would help.

“I emphasized to the president-elect the need for the federal government to fulfill its promise in fully funding its share of special education costs, a concern raised to me by many Maine superintendents and school boards,” Collins said.

The meeting in Austin, Texas, included education leaders from both parties and was designed to provide the president-elect bipartisan comment from conservative and liberal ranks, as well as moderates, like Collins. Lawmakers such as Rep. George Miller of California, a top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, and Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., attended. They were joined by GOP lawmakers such as Sen. James M. Jeffords, R-Vt., and Rep. Bob Schaffer, R-Colo.

The two-hour working lunch left Collins “delighted.”

“His commitment to improving education for all children and to narrowing the gap in performance between disadvantaged children and their peers is inspiring,” Collins said. “There was a general bipartisan consensus on the need to increase the federal investment in education and to give school districts more flexibility while holding them accountable for improving student achievement.”

Bush said the administration’s education policy would focus on a strategy to provide states with more authority over education policy.

The Bush administration also plans to establish an incentive-based program for awarding additional federal funding to schools with good performance records.

Collins made a special pitch for rural schools and assisting children with reading disabilities.

“He was very receptive to both proposals,” she said.

Schaffer, a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce and co-founder of a charter school in Fort Collins, Colo., was the last Republican member of the Colorado delegation to endorse Bush. Charter schools are independent of local school districts and are supposed to help improve learning and achievement. In return, the schools are expected to show results to justify their independence.

“We want to start liberating states and school districts to use more flexibility” in their programs, Schaffer said. “We will also be more stringent [in] demanding results in exchange for funds and will reward states that succeed.”

Schaffer said the two parties agreed on much of Bush’s education agenda, including school accountability, expanding the concept of charter schools and streamlining the Department of Education.

Still those who attended said neither side seems willing to bend on the key issue of school vouchers, which would give federal tax dollars to private schools to make a private-school education more affordable for low- or middle-income families.

Bush supports vouchers, but believes they should be handled by the states rather than by the federal government. Opponents argue that private schools are not eligible for government aid and vouchers would significantly diminish public school funds.

After the meeting, Bayh cautioned that a move to push for vouchers could block education reform.

“If we divert funds from public to private schools, the likelihood of success on all other issues is much less,” Bayh said. “A vouchers-or-nothing approach increases the chances that nothing will get done.”