WASHINGTON -- President Bush yesterday proposed a $1.5 billion federal initiative to require high school students -- through grade 11 -- to take annual standardized tests in reading and math.

	J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press President Bush waves to the audience as he arrives to outline his second-term education agenda in a speech yesterday at J.E.B Stuart High School, Falls Church, Va. Click photo for larger image.

Speaking at the J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Va., Bush said expanding yearly testing to high school students will help narrow the achievement gap facing many minority students and counter the nation's high school drop-out rate.

Bush said his plan for high schools also would boost federal funding in other areas. Among them: $200 million for a literacy program for struggling adolescents, $120 million to improve the way high school math is taught and $500 million to give financial rewards to teachers whose students show improved achievement.

Bush's initiative also includes more federal dollars for programs aimed at top high school students, including a 73 percent increase for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs, $12 million to expand state scholar programs and a $2,000 increase in Pell grants for high-achieving, low-income students.

But the centerpiece is Bush's effort to extend the yearly testing requirements of the No Child Left Behind Law, which is focused on narrowing the achievement gap that leaves many African-American and Hispanic students lagging behind white and Asian students. The 3-year-old law requires students to be tested annually in reading and math in grades three through eight, and at least once during high school. Schools are held accountable for yearly increases in student achievement.

Many states still are implementing the law. In Pennsylvania, students are tested in reading and math in the third, fifth, eighth and 11th grades, but the state hasn't yet devised tests for the other grades.

Bush also earmarked $250 million to mandate the 12th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading and math in each state every two years, as it is in fourth and eighth grades. That for the first time would let states compare results for high school seniors.

Bush's proposal drew immediate criticism from Democrats and some education groups. While lauding his effort to improve high schools, these critics contended that the president should fully fund the current No Child Left Behind Law before expanding it to more grades.

During Bush's tenure, federal education funding has risen by 40 percent, from $17.3 billion to $24.3 billion. But critics, including the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, contend that the increase hasn't matched his pledges and isn't enough to pay costs of creating and grading tests that the new law requires.

Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., ranking Democrat on the House Education and Workforce Committee, argued that, in the past three years, schools "have been shortchanged $27 billion compared to what they were promised" under the No Child Left Behind Law. "This proposal for high school, regardless of what merits it might or might not have, will encounter stiff resistance in Congress and in the country," he said, "until President Bush fulfills the commitments that already have been made to our public schools."

Pennsylvania Department of Education spokeswoman Stephanie Suran said, "High schools need to be a part of all education reform efforts, which is why Pennsylvania recently began Project 720, ... [which uses] research-based practices to improve the academic rigor of our high schools." But Suran noted that state officials also believe that extending annual testing to high school students "would require significant additional federal investments."