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Democrats call on GOP to back up education promises
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Democrats emerged from their resounding defeat in Tuesday's midterm elections Saturday with shots at President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, for their education policies, calling them "empty promises." The same voters who last week re-elected Bush as governor of Florida approved a constitutional amendment written by a newly minted Florida congressman that requires smaller class sizes in the state. The measure passed 52 percent to 48 percent. "Florida has seen empty promises on education before," said U.S. Rep.-elect Kendrick Meek, delivering the Democrats' weekly radio address. He ran unopposed in south Florida's 17th congressional district and will succeed his mother, Carrie Meek, in the post. Kendrick Meek said that despite Democrats' "disappointing defeat" in Tuesday's elections, the party will work "as hard as humanly possible" with its Republican counterparts. But his address focused on the rhetoric from both Bushes "about improving public education without putting up the funding to back up their words." Passage of the state amendment represented a rejection of the governor's education policies, Meek said. "We know that you get what you pay for, and that both Governor Bush and President Bush have been talking about improving public education without putting up the funding to back up their words. Florida voters got tired of the word games, and we did something about it," Meek said. "No longer will Florida children be crammed into classrooms because politicians are more interested in tax breaks for the wealthy than they are in educating our children," he said. Gov. Bush was quoted as saying this week he didn't know how the state would pay for the smaller class sizes called for in the constitutional amendment. Florida's schools are "a mess" -- they rank last of the 50 states in per capita spending on education, 49th in high-school graduation rates, and have some of the nation's most-crowded classrooms, Meek said. Reforms like those passed in Florida need to be heeded nationally, he said, "because education is a top priority of Democrats in Congress. That is why we are fighting with President Bush and the Republican House leadership to fully fund President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act." A call to Gov. Bush's office was not returned. Nationally, Democrats demand that the president's actions match his rhetoric. "President Bush now has a Republican House and a Republican Senate. He said he wants to be the education president. We Democrats call on the president to put the funding behind his promise. Our children deserve no less," Meek said.
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