ALBUQUERQUE, May 4 -- Sen. John F. Kerry introduced his education plan in this battleground state on Tuesday, blaming President Bush for the nation's high dropout rate and vowing to increase graduation rates by 1 million students over five years.
"As everybody knows, the promise of No Child Left Behind has been broken," Kerry told parents and teachers at Longfellow Elementary School, referring to the Bush administration's education program to improve student proficiency in reading and math, which some administrators have said sets standards many schools cannot meet.
Kerry pledged to increase graduation rates by reducing class sizes, breaking up large failing high schools, offering a college-student mentoring program for middle schoolers, and taking away driver's licenses from students who drop out. He also promised to fund No Child Left Behind, which he had voted for and has accused the administration of abandoning by not fully funding it and by not enforcing some of its provisions.
"You've got 40 and 50 percent dropout rates in some cities, and that's just unacceptable," Kerry said earlier in Minneapolis at a Youth Build project, part of a national alternative-education program that helps students get diplomas through home-building projects.
Kerry said he asked for more funds for the $65 million program but was not supported by the Bush administration.
Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, assailed Kerry for calling No Child Left Behind " 'groundbreaking legislation' when he voted for it, then changed his view when he needed the support of Democrat primary voters."
In Albuquerque, Kerry read "Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothes" and "Green Eggs and Ham" to kindergartners at the largely Hispanic, low-income school before discussing his education plan with parents and teachers.
When he entered the classroom, student Mariana Gonzales asked loudly, "Can you touch the roof?" Kerry laughed, and another student replied, "But you're tall."
"Oh my God!" screeched a third when she looked up.
With Kerry in New Mexico was Gov. Bill Richardson (D), a former House member and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who is enormously popular in a state that former vice president Al Gore won by just 366 votes in 2000. Kerry has yet to open an office here, but Richardson announced the new state director, Miles Mercado, who had worked for the campaign of Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). "He is making the right moves," he said of Kerry's efforts to reach out to Hispanic voters.
Richardson, who will serve as chairman of the Democratic National Convention and has been mentioned as a vice presidential contender, said he supports the announcement of the choices later rather than sooner. "I believe that there has to be some excitement at the conventions, and there's no need to rush," he said.
The governor said he has found another way of saying he does not want the No. 2 job. "There's a new one I am thinking of, 'I would not accept at gunpoint,' " Richardson said, offering a variation of William Tecumseh Sherman's "will not accept if nominated" declaration of his non-candidacy in 1884.
