COLUMN: ‘No Child’ hardly had a chance
It appears that President Bush’s (self-inflicted) domestic woes may never end; first a sluggish economic recovery, then an underfunded Homeland Security Department, a pharmaceutical-friendly Medicaid bill, and now mutiny over the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).
The act, which was signed into law by President Bush over two years ago, requires states to test students in reading and math every year and penalizes schools that don’t meet standards. The problem with the law is that, much like Bush’s Martian vision, it comes highly unfunded, stringent and unrealistic.
What is so unrealistic about requiring students to read and learn math at their level? The answer is nothing; in fact the emphasis is very welcomed. After all, the Democrats in Congress have been quite vocal about increased education funding for quite some time now.
Nevertheless, although simplistic in approach, the NCLB Act has several serious deficiencies, among those a huge funding paucity. In February 2003, the bipartisan National Governors Association voted unanimously to label Bush’s NCLB Act an unfunded mandate, along with special education, homeland security and Medicaid.
A November 2003 survey of nearly 2,000 superintendents and principals found that nine in 10 viewed No Child Left Behind as an unfunded mandate. Moreover, in the two years since the president signed the NCLB Act, none of his budgets have come close to meeting the level of funding authorized in the act. The FY 2004 budget submitted by Bush fell $9 billion short of the amount authorized for 2004 and his FY 2003 budget fell $7.2 billion short of approved funding.
Another deficiency is the fact that it is unresponsive to state and local needs, by assuming that funding is equally available to each school district. Some schools are failing only because a few students with special needs aren’t making the bar.
In addition, since its first implementation the law has declared more than 6,000 schools failing. The situation becomes especially precarious in districts where classrooms are already overcrowded and schools are few and far between. In certain rural areas in several states, where some schools have been declared failing, the students who would have no other option but to attend schools located 50 to 100 miles away, still are unable to do so, since even the successful schools are already above capacity. So rather than leaving no children behind, the act is leaving an estimated 30 percent of children behind.
In a sign of growing uneasiness with the act’s draconian and unfunded federally mandated requirements, Utah legislators voted on Feb. 10 to become the first state to resist the NCLB Act by rejecting education mandates that would cost the state more than the federal government was willing to cover. The move followed a series of actions from other states around the country, at least 20 of them, that have voiced their serious doubts with the act.
This recent swelling of discontent against the act, regardless of party line (in Utah and Virginia the rebellion has been led by Republicans), reflects a more serious state of Bush’s failed policies both on the domestic and the international front. By closing himself to any type of realistic feedback on issues, the president has placed himself in a cocoon that has left him out of touch with the American public. The fear is that much like his strategy in Iraq, his domestic policies will be greatly influenced by a short-term fix to fit a campaign slogan, rather than by meaningful efforts to address this country’s growing economic and international woes.
Medlir Mema is a senior majoring in political science. Comments can be sent to medlirm@cc.usu.edu.