California and the West : Bush Suggests Stripping Funds From Weak Schools : Politics: Candidate says it would help poor children by giving the money instead to students’ parents. He adds that every federal program must provide results.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush, applying his philosophy of “compassionate conservatism” to education, said Thursday that the government can do more to help poor children by stripping federal dollars away from underperforming schools and giving the money to parents.

Speaking to a predominantly Latino audience in Los Angeles, Bush said federal education programs must place greater emphasis on basic curricula and demand measurable proof that children are learning.

“My administration will require every federal program . . . to prove results,” the Republican presidential front-runner 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.

The subject of Bush’s first significant policy address and its locale were no accident. Education has long been a priority for the Texas governor--and a top voter concern across the nation. At the same time, Bush has sought to recast the image of the Republican Party by placing greater emphasis on those “left behind,” as he put it Thursday, and by reaching out to traditionally Democratic constituencies, such as Latinos and African Americans.

Earlier in the day, he stopped at Bennett-Kew Elementary School in Inglewood, where he spoke to the student body and read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” to a group of kindergartners.

Speaking at lunchtime to several thousand business owners and entrepreneurs gathered for the annual Latin Business Assn. Expo at the downtown Convention Center, Bush offered two major proposals:

He 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 Gov. 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. In all instances, the testing criteria would be established at the local level.

“The goal here is to strengthen public schools by expecting performance,” said Bush, whose speech was greeted with largely restrained applause. “In the best case, these schools will rise to the challenge. . . . In the worst case, we will offer scholarships to America’s neediest children, allowing them to get emergency help they should have. In any case, the federal government will no longer pay schools to cheat poor children.”

Bush offered statistic after statistic as proof that similar reforms have improved test scores in Texas, particularly among African Americans and Latinos.

Some critics, however, have argued that the improvements were largely a result of reforms, such as class size reduction and increased funding, that were launched before Bush took office in 1994.

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 Democrats asserted that the $792-billion tax cut passed by the GOP-run Congress would devastate federal education programs and undermine the very goals Bush promoted. “Any Republican presidential candidate who is supporting a risky tax cut that would hurt our children . . . has little credibility talking about education,” said Chris Lehane, a spokesman for Vice President Al Gore. “Sounds like the Texas two-step to me.”

The National Education Assn., 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 NEA President Bob Chase.

Campaigning in Cleveland, Democratic hopeful Bill Bradley also criticized taxpayer-funded vouchers, citing church-state issues. “I think we have to do more with the public school system itself,” he said.

Bush’s speech was hardly a recitation of traditional Republican orthodoxy. He did not call for abolition of the federal Department of Education, long sought by many conservative Republicans.

Bush also endorsed bilingual education, saying that if a bilingual program delivers strong results, “we should applaud it.”

“What matters is not the varying methods,” Bush said, “but the common standards and goals. The standard is English literacy. The goal is equal opportunity.”

Bush has never taken a position on Proposition 227, the 1998 ballot measure that effectively banned bilingual education in California. He did oppose Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigration initiative, and implicitly repeated that condemnation Thursday.

Aides said Bush chose the Latino forum and focus on poor children to underscore his message of inclusion and, as one put it, “cut against the grain” and demonstrate that “conservative principles can be both caring and compassionate at the same time.”

The governor plans two more speeches on education in coming weeks, focusing on school safety and curriculum. Also planned are major speeches outlining his proposals for defense and the economy.

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Audio from Bush’s speech Thursday outlining his education proposals is available on The