OS ANGELES - Texas Governor George W. Bush, applying his core philosophy of ''compassionate conservatism'' to US schools, said yesterday the federal government must do more to help educate needy children. The answer is not more spending, he said, but greater accountability.
Speaking to a predominantly Latino audience in Los Angeles, Bush said federal education programs must place greater emphasis on basic curriculums and demand measurable proof that children are learning.
''My administration will require every federal program ... prove results,'' he said. ''If it cannot, we will shift that money to a program that is using it wisely. No federal education program will be reauthorized merely because it has existed for years. It is more important to do good than to feel good.''
Offering something to appeal to, and rankle, virtually everyone on the political spectrum, Bush also used the symbolic setting to deliver a pointed message:
''Children, of any background, should not be used as pawns in bitter debates on education and immigration,'' he said to sustained applause, ''or punished to make a broader political point.'' It was a not-so-veiled reference to the recent batch of controversial ballot initiatives targeting social services for California's growing foreign-born population.
Bush called for greater accountability for the federal government's largest education grant program, Title I, which spends $7.7 billion annually to help one of every five public school students. Bush would require that schools receiving Title I money test their students in academic basics each year.
If schools failed to improve after three years, federal funds would be diverted to parents, who could use their share, roughly $1,500 a year, to enroll their children in other schools, public or private, or to pay for tutoring. The proposal adapts an approach that his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, has used to implement a voucher plan in his state.
The Texas governor also proposed overhauling Head Start, the preschool program for low-income children, to place a greater emphasis on education, specifically reading skills and school readiness.
The program would be shifted to the Department of Education from the Department of Health and Human Services, and individual Head Start centers would be evaluated on the educational achievement of their students. Failing programs could be taken over by churches, synagogues, or community groups.
His proposals were quickly pounced on by Democratic opponents, including a school board member from Odessa, Texas, who flew to Los Angeles to offer a personal critique.
The National Education Association, the nation's largest teacher organization and a major Democratic ally, asserted that Bush's voucher program giving public money to private schools would rob students of desperately needed funds. ''For a fraction of the cost ... we can put struggling students in smaller classes where all of them, not a select few, will learn to read, write and compute at higher levels,'' said Bob Chase, president of the association.
