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CNN Saturday Morning News

Bush Prepares to Push Education Reform

Aired September 01, 2001 - 09:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: President Bush is urging members of Congress to settle their differences and pass his education reform plan. The president returned to Washington Thursday after a working vacation in Texas, and education is one of his top priorities.

We get the latest in this live report now from CNN White House correspondent Kelly Wallace.

Kelly, good to see you.

KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Nice to see you, Kyra.

Well, you know, this is the time of year when students are going back to class after their summer vacations, and aides say President Bush will be using this time to begin almost daily pressuring lawmakers to try to work out their differences on education reform, a plan that really would call for the most sweeping changes in the education system in this country in 35 years.

You see there Mr. Bush and the first lady departing yesterday for Camp David, where they are spending the weekend, Mr. Bush to begin stepping up the pressure today in his weekly radio address. But Democrats also focusing on the importance of this issue and finishing up work on this issue in their radio address as well.

You see, both the House and the Senate have passed education bills, both calling for annual testing of students in reading and math in grades three through eight, and both also holding schools accountable for students' performance.

But there are big sticking points between the two bills, which lawmakers have still not resolved. The sticking points include, number one, how do you measure accountability? Where do you set the bar to determine if schools are making progress, or if they are not, should be they be -- face sanctions, such as receiving less in federal dollars?

And speaking of federal dollars, another big sticking point, how much federal money to spend? Because the House bill is calling for about $23 to $24 billion in federal spending on education. The Senate bill wants to spend more, maybe more than $10 billion, or at least more, $10 billion more than that. So big issues to resolve. And the money issue, Kyra, very important, because of course there's that shrinking federal budget surplus, so less money to spend. Lawmakers expected to meet next week to start grappling and settling these differences.

Kyra, back to you.

PHILLIPS: All right, Kelly, thanks. And hold tight, we have a lot of e-mail questions for you coming up.

WALLACE: OK.

PHILLIPS: All right.

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