Editorial: No funding, no mandates

Thursday, April 21, 2005 | 9:14 a.m.

The No Child Left Behind act has been criticized by school districts around the nation ever since President Bush signed it into law in January 2002. The act, known by its acronym NCLB, targets schools whose students post below-average scores on standardized tests. This is a worthy endeavor, but a major problem arose from the start. The federal government mandated programs to improve those schools, but provided scant funding to pay for them.

Nevada's experience is typical of other states. There are 126 schools here on a "watch list" for failing to make "adequate yearly progress" for one year, and another 122 schools labeled as "needing improvement" for failing to make adequate yearly progress for two consecutive years. Each of these schools, under NCLB, is mandated to undertake several costly programs to improve their performance. But where is the money for this? It's not in the state's education budget, and it's not forthcoming from Washington.

On Wednesday the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, announced it was joining with school districts in Texas, Michigan and Vermont in a lawsuit against the federal government. They want it to pick up more of the costs of NCLB, and to have a federal judge rule that states and local school districts are not required to pick up the difference between what a federally mandated program costs and what the federal government actually pays.

Other resistance to NCLB is mounting as well. Utah has passed a bill ordering state officials to ignore parts of the law. Connecticut is preparing its own lawsuit. The National Governors Association has declared NCLB to be an "unfunded mandate." And criticism continues in Nevada. Already shortchanged by Washington, Bush's budget calls for cutting another $76 million out of Nevada's education funding for 2006.

It's unlikely that any of the lawsuits or criticisms will wring more education money from the federal government. Under free-spending, tax-cutting President Bush, the federal deficit is mushrooming and money for education is shrinking. The best that can be hoped for, realistically, is that attention will be drawn to unfunded mandates. The federal government should learn that if it can't, or won't, pay for sweeping changes at the state and local levels, it must stop ordering them.