Campaign 2000: Follow the Money

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Still, on the first day of school at Coliseum Street Elementary in central Los Angeles last week, Bush's insistence that "no child should be left behind" seems to miss a larger point. Like many other poor urban schools, Coliseum is chronically short of textbooks, computers and supplies, not to mention experienced teachers. Many such schools spend less per pupil than schools in surrounding suburbs despite having more high-need kids. Bush knows this is wrong: he waged a worthy but losing fight in Texas to rejigger school funding in 1997. Thus far he's been mum about such injustice on the stump. Nor does he say that as Head Start improves, it will need cash to reach beyond the 40% of eligible preschoolers it now serves, most in part-day, part-year programs that don't fit the needs of working mothers. Even Bush's plan to make Title I funds "portable" after three years is too cheap: $1,500 barely covers tuition at some parochial schools and is not enough to test the voucher idea. Little wonder that with all the burdens facing poor schools, word that the G.O.P. front runner wants to take away Title I money feels like another slap. "It irritates us," says Coliseum principal Zoe Jefferson of the pols. "They come up with solutions that sound easy to sell in one-liners."