[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5363]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  PRESIDENT'S BUDGET DOES LITTLE TO CLOSE ACHIEVEMENT GAP IN EDUCATION

  Mr. MILLER of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, President Bush recently 
announced his opposition to the affirmative action plan used by the 
University of Michigan in admissions. It is troubling that the academic 
achievements of white students and African American students at 
Michigan are markedly different, but it is troubling for a reason that 
President Bush apparently did not consider. It is troubling that almost 
a half century after the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of 
Education there remain such disparities in the academic achievements of 
white students and African American students.
  Mr. Speaker, the public schools are where we deliver on the promise 
of equality of opportunity. The public schools must deliver on that 
promise to white children; to black children; to children whose parents 
do not speak English in their homes; to the children of parents who 
care passionately about their children, who read to them every night, 
who join the PTA and volunteer at their children's schools; to the 
children of parents who are themselves children and are as little 
prepared to be parents as their parents were before them.
  Just days after President Bush announced his opposition to the 
University of Michigan's affirmative action plan, he announced his 
proposed budget. We see from that budget what he would do to close the 
achievement gap so that universities can achieve a diversity in 
population without affirmative action plans like Michigan's. Mr. 
Speaker, he would do very little.
  The very programs that are most effective in closing the achievement 
gap and delivering on the promise of equality of opportunity for every 
child are hardest hit. The proposed budget cuts No Child Left Behind by 
$9 billion. The act gives a nod to the promise of equality of 
opportunity, but the budget breaks that promise.
  The budget cuts after-school programs by more than 40 percent, 
teacher training by almost $200 million. It cuts individualized 
instruction in math and reading for disadvantaged children. President 
Bush's budget guts Head Start, our effort to reach disadvantaged 
children who now arrive for kindergarten so far behind they can never 
catch up.

                              {time}  1330

  I sat in a first grade class in my State and had one child after 
another read out loud to me. Some children read effortlessly in a sing-
song voice because the material lacked such challenge. Other children 
read laboriously, sounding out every word, getting every third or 
fourth word wrong.
  When those children apply for college 13 years later, I fear there 
will be the same differences in their academic achievement, and we will 
still need affirmative action plans like Michigan to achieve diverse 
populations in our colleges.
  Mr. Speaker, it is not acceptable to me that our children's chances 
in life depend so greatly on the circumstances into which they were 
born. President Bush's budget shows that he is not bothered by that.

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