An Unlikely Partnership Left Behind

Bush invited Kennedy and other lawmakers to the Oval Office on his second full workday as president and gave an animated talk about closing the achievement gap between white and minority children. What really sealed the partnership, though, was when he used a term of art -- "disaggregation of data" -- to describe the importance of breaking out minority test scores so school districts could not just highlight overall achievement. The three words signaled to Kennedy his seriousness about the subject.

As the lawmakers got up to leave, Bush noted that reporters would grill them on the way out and asked Kennedy not to drive a wedge between them. Kennedy agreed, telling the reporters that there were areas of agreement and that he was "interested in getting some action." Bush concluded that this was someone he could trust.

And so the courtship began. Bush invited the senator for a White House screening of "Thirteen Days," the Kevin Costner movie about the Cuban missile crisis. He later renamed the Justice Department headquarters after Robert F. Kennedy.

"I don't think the two expected to like each other, but they did," said Sandy Kress, Bush's education lobbyist at the time. "The president was very impassioned about this and very knowledgeable about it, and I think that surprised Senator Kennedy. That was not the image he had of George W. Bush. Kennedy, on the other hand, was open, respectful, more interested in partnership than the president probably expected."

The other key Democrat on Bush's recruitment list was Rep. George Miller (Calif.), or "Big George," as Bush nicknamed him. After years of fighting Republicans trying to abolish the Education Department, Miller was thrilled to find one who wanted to empower it.

By the fall of 2001, Bush had a deal. In exchange for an infusion of money, the more than 1,000-page bill would require schools to test students in math and reading from grades 3 to 8 and once in high school, with the goal of every child meeting basic proficiency by 2014. States would set their own standards and tests. Schools that did not measure up would face sanctions and their students would be allowed to transfer. Named for Bush's campaign slogan, it would be the most important education law in 35 years.

Conservatives wasted no time trying to derail the plan by proposing to give states more flexibility. Bush summoned Rep. Jim DeMint (S.C.), sponsor of the amendment, to the White House and pressed him to pull it. Just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Republicans swallowed misgivings, and the plan passed 381 to 41 in the House and 87 to 10 in the Senate. DeMint voted yes.

"Obviously if a president's sailing along at 80 percent approval rating, members are going to be very reluctant to say no," Rep. Michael N. Castle (R-Del.) said. "People were willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt."

'Lies and Lies and Lies and Lies'

In February 2002, a month after he joined Kennedy on a fly-around tour to mark the signing of No Child Left Behind, Bush released a budget without as much money for the program as Kennedy expected.

Kennedy was shocked when an aide came with the news. With Miller, he marched to the press gallery to vent his outrage. Miller recalled it as a seminal moment. "That just really poisoned the well," he said.

The flush of the grand bipartisan compact quickly faded for other reasons, too. Early implementation proved chaotic. The Education Department was slow to issue regulations explaining how to comply, and aggravation in local communities grew. Lawmakers found their town hall meetings jammed with angry teachers and parents.

While schools struggled to make sense of the law, Washington turned to war. After Bush sent U.S. troops into Iraq, Kennedy denounced the "lies and lies and lies and lies," and threw himself into the drive to oust Bush in the 2004 election, campaigning vigorously for fellow Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry. "The only thing we have to fear is four more years of George Bush," Kennedy thundered at the Democratic convention.