Editorial: Schools need help at the federal level

New York Times editorial

Monday, May 19, 2003 | 9:07 a.m.

The No Child Left Behind education act was touted as a way to raise standards, improve teacher training and prevent America's schools from sliding further into mediocrity. But the Bush administration undermined the effort by failing to fully finance the new law at a time when the recession-ravaged states are laying off teachers, shortening the school year and cutting education budgets.

The states are especially desperate for construction money that would permit them to renovate crumbling school buildings coast to coast. A General Accounting Office report in the mid-1990s estimated that putting the ancient buildings in working order would require a new investment of $112 billion -- a figure that the states were unable to raise on their own even in flush times, let alone during a recession.

Many Republican lawmakers now understand that federal education initiatives are destined to fail unless the states and localities are able to shore up collapsing school buildings and provide children with safe, well-equipped places in which to learn. Two bills that would prime the pump -- and begin the flow of construction money -- have been introduced in the House and one has been introduced in the Senate. The bills would allow the localities to finance school construction and repairs by issuing inexpensive bonds, on which bond holders would receive a federal tax credit instead of interest.

The bonding initiative attracted wide bipartisan support in the last Congress, but failed because many lawmakers viewed the bill as too costly or viewed education as an exclusively local matter. In the interim, however, deterioriating schools have become a pressing national problem that cries out for leadership from Washington.

-- New York Times editorial