Talking Point

President Bush signed bipartisan legislation in December reauthorizing the Head Start program. But even as they praised the program, Congress funded the program at $480 million below its authorized level. Then President Bush in early February proposed a budget that would reduce funding even further below what the Congress authorized. It would mean the number of children who would be served in Head Start would fall to 895,000 in 2009, with deeper cuts in the future. That is at a time when the number of children eligible for Head Start grew by 13 percent between 2002 and 2006. Head Start will have no choice but to turn away children who need this support the most.

The President’s 2009 budget proposes to fund Head Start at $7 billion, just a hair under what is needed to maintain 2008 funding levels adjusted for inflation, and about 12 percent below the 2002 funding level adjusted for inflation.

The reality is that for every $1 that Head Start received in 2002, it will receive just 89 cents in 2008. President Bush is not supporting the Head Start program. He is starving it, and leaving children behind in the process.

Americans want schools that teach values as well as math and reading. But "values" don’t just mean "abstinence" and "just say no." Values include responsibility, problem-solving, self-discipline and working with others. Speak to these values when talking about schools.

The conservative call for free markets, privatization and deregulation sounds sensible. But the reality of crony capitalism and pay to play politics too often benefits inefficient corporate lobbies over the public good. These core conservative ideals are compromising American education and weakening this nation.

The conservative mantra of "lower taxes, smaller government" is poll-tested to appeal. But the reality — tax breaks for the wealthy and cuts in domestic programs for working and poor people — doesn't work for most Americans. The result? Thousands of American students with the grades and desire to go to college simply cannot afford to go.

Here are the facts:

• The president has broken his campaign promise to raise Pell grants, the basic government scholarship program, to help cover rising costs
• Conservative lawmakers in Congress cut $12 billion this year from the student loan program — even while interest rates were hiked on college loans, and billions in tax giveaways were lavished on the wealthiest Americans.
• The average graduate of a four-year college will depart with $23,600 in student loans and $2,000 in credit card debt.
• The government could save $7 on every $100 in loans simply by providing loans to students directly. But bankers have lobbied successfully to remain the middle men, profiting from administering government guaranteed student loans. They lavished $3.5 million in campaign contributions on legislators since 2004 — over three-fourths to the Republican majority.

American students and their parents are essentially on their own. Families and students are taking on more and more debt to cover higher education costs. Many students are forced to forgo the education that they have earned because they can't afford the cost.

College costs are soaring (tuition is up about 40 percent since President Bush took office in 2001), but college assistance hasn't kept up.

Americans agree that higher education is more important than ever, yet America is falling behind, ranking 13th in college affordability among industrialized nations, and falling to fourth in percentage of eligible students who enter college.

Go after conservatives for depriving our children of the basics while giving tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans. Simply rolling back the Bush tax cuts provided to the top 1% could provide the funding to more than double the education budget.

Champion public school choice – magnet schools, diverse curricula as well as schedules and constant incorporation of best practices from schools, whether private or public.