Beyond busing: George H. W. Bush and school desegregatioin

Educational Foundations, Fall 2001 by McAndrews, Lawrence J

The Bush approach nevertheless ignited criticism. From the right, Undersecretary of Education Charles Kolb lamented the task force's "repeated references... to the federal role," adding, "While we do have a role here, ours is not the predominant one." From the left, Raul Yzaguirre of the National Council of La Raza, the leading Hispanic interest group, criticized Bush's America 2000 plan as discriminatory toward Latinos in its calls for voluntary national student testing and inadequate in its school funding proposals. "It is true that money alone is not the answer," Yzaguirre conceded. "But no one should realistically expect reform to come cheap, especially since the school districts with the largest proportion of Hispanic and other minority students are among the poorest in the country." He reminded the President to convoke his promised Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans to address these concerns.27

But the "crisis" would have to wait. In June 1991, new Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander submitted the report on bilingual education mandated by the Hawkins-Stafford Act of 1988. "Today . . . approximately 140 languages are included under federally funded Title VII Part A programs, serving an estimated 290,000 students for the 1990-91 academic year," the report noted. "It is the Department of Education's position that bilingual education programs have the potential to address or are addressing each [national educational] goal as it relates to students with limited educational proficiency." Yet rather than heed the executive order's charge to assess Hispanics' progress toward meeting each ofthe six goals (one-hundred-percent readiness to learn, ninety-percent high school graduation, demonstrated competency in core subjects, first in the world in mathematics and science; universal adult literacy; completely drug and violence-free schools), the report merely reviewed federal efforts toward attaining them.28

Fourteen months after its creation, the President finally convened his Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans. "First, I regret that it has taken so long from the time this panel was first envisioned to today's meeting," Bush apologized. "I pledge to make up for lost time." But the press ofother concerns, such as an ailing economy and an impending election, would preclude significant progress on Bush's Hispanic education initiative. A President "can't go to the well too many times," Bush's Domestic Policy Advisor Roger Porter cautions. "Every issue can't be the most important thing."29

Conclusions

Historical appraisals of President George H.W. Bush's civil rights record have sought answers to three major questions: How directly involved was President Bush in civil rights policy making? How much continuity was there between the Reagan and Bush civil rights legacies? And how successful was the Bush Administration in addressing civil rights issues?

To the first question, several observers have concluded that George Bush was largely absent from the civil rights and other domestic arenas. Richard Rose defines a leader as "active in promoting domestic politics, increasing federal spending, and introducing new legislation." Since Bush did none of these very effectively, Rose argues, he was simply a "guardian.... a player, but not in charge." David Mervin concurs that Bush was "far more comfortable with foreign policy making and instinctively doubtful of the efficacy of government action in domestic policy." Herbert Parmet agrees that Bush was "detached from domestic monitoring."30