Will the promise be unbroken?

While many aspects of No Child Left Behind are confusing, one fact is crystal clear--Congress and the administration must do more to keep their promise and support this ambitious reform effort with the resources needed to make it work.

This summer, the House of Representatives approved a domestic spending bill that would hold all federal programs tied to NCLB to a below-inflation increase of 1.6 percent. That's a far cry from the funding lawmakers promised when they passed NCLB, which includes funding for Title I. The $12.35 billion budgeted for Title I in the next fiscal year is about a third less than the funding authorized by Congress. And the slim bankroll ignores the hefty price that states and districts must pay for federal mandates such as public school choice for students in schools that have not made adequate yearly progress under NCLB, or the law's ambitious and expensive testing requirements.

The effects already are being felt in places like Chicago, where the district recently cut 450 school jobs to pay up to $20 million in transportation costs associated with NCLB choice provisions. "That's $20 million that could be going to the frontlines, going right into the classrooms," says Deborah Lynch, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and an AFT vice president. "It's a mandate, but with only two-thirds of the funding, districts have to try and bear the costs on their own."

Testing is another big-ticket item. The nonpartisan U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) estimates that states will spend a total of $1.9 billion between fiscal years 2002 and 2008 for testing tied to NCLB--and that assumes the tests used are multiple-choice, machine-graded exams. "If all states use tests with a mixture of multiple-choice questions and a limited number of open-ended questions that require students to write [their answers], GAO estimates spending to be about $5.3 billion."

As American Teacher went to press, it was unclear whether the Senate would follow the House's lead and refuse to provide the resources needed for NCLB. The AFT continues to lobby vigorously for the types of support needed--and promised--to make "No Child Left Behind" more than just a slogan.

"We all know the necessary money still isn't there, despite the many promises to the contrary," AFT president Sandra Feldman told a QuEST conference audience in July.

"The money part is straightforward: We fight like hell for it!"
 

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