Legislators critical of Bush's call to expand NCLB.

President Bush might not have the votes in Congress he needs to move forward on his a $1.5 billion proposal to expand the major tenets of No Child Left Behind to the nation's high schools.

Some key Republican and Democratic congressional representatives are saying it's premature to consider any additional legislation before some key concerns over the original law have been addressed, including funding levels for NCLB.

On the right, some conservatives have been critical of the act saying it gives states less control over education, cedes too much control to the federal government, and it lacks school choice initiatives.

On the left, some Democrats say Bush never came through with full funding for NCLB and the federal education department has been slow in sufficiently addressing how to assess adequate yearly progress for limited English proficient and special education students. And some say his budget proposal to cut funding for vocational education programs to pay for high school testing is unfair.

"There are so many issues surrounding NCLB from the far right and far left. Any expansion would be something that would be highly debated," says Elizabeth Wenk, a spokeswoman for Rep. Michael Castle, R-Delaware, a ranking member of the House Education Committee and chair of the Education Reform Subcommittee.

George Miller, D-Calif., a member of the House Education Committee who supported NCLB in the original vote, says former allies are not getting behind Bush.

"President Bush has lost his credibility on education issues by failing to properly implement or fully fund No Child Left Behind, resulting in needless controversy about the law. The president has further shown that he is simply not credible on education by proposing to pay for his high school testing proposal by cutting proven education programs," Miller says.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings says the department looks forward to negotiations on the proposal. "This is the beginning of the process, and I am encouraged by the fact that so many governors from both political parties have taken an interest in high school reform," Spellings states. "I am certain that we all have the same goal of trying to make the high school years be meaningful so that our nation's students enter the workforce or the higher education system prepared to succeed."

Krista Kafer, a senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, says there is more of a variety of views of what needs to be improved in high school than there is on the elementary level. "A lot of folks feel that while there is some merit to the idea to expand NCLB, it is just premature," Kafer says. "There just isn't a consensus of what to do in high schools."