Left Behind

A flagpole piece of The Administration's first-term legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act, is coming under heavy critcism and scrutiny. The primary complaint: it requires too much federally mandated restrictions and controls on standards, provides inequal incentives for underperforming districts, and is so underfunded that it is bankrupting state school systems.

The situation with No Child is so drastic that the State of Connecticuit has filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education.

"We in Connecticut do a lot of testing already, far more than most other states. Our taxpayers are sagging under the crushing costs of local education. What we don't need is a new laundry list of things to do — with no new money to do them," Rell said.

The federal government is providing Connecticut with $5.8 million this fiscal year to pay for the testing, Sternberg said. She estimates federal funds will fall $41.6 million short of paying for staffing, program development, standardized tests and other costs associated with implementing the law through 2008.

The state is not the first entity to sue in response to No Child Left Behind. The National Education Association, a national teacher's union, filed a lawsuit last spring on behalf of local districts and 10 state union chapters, including Connecticut.

In fact, at this point a majority of states have begun to at least question the No Child Act. They've found that the costs that they must shoulder, most of the time unneccesarily [Connecticuit has consistently scored in the top 5 across the board for their students in primary and middle schools], are obscene injustices. Injustices because they require extreme shifts and changes in teaching style with no local control and without funding them; this results in the degregation of the schools which need the most assistence.

The No Child Left Behind Act was formed to emulate a successful program Bush enacted while governor or Texas. Will Bush balk on the national scale?

Apparently Texas isn't too happy with No Child, either. Bush can present a mirage of success which really dumbs down our country and bankrupts our school systems, he can present a mirage of success with fighting Terrorism that bankrupts our economy and sends us into permanent war in the Middle East and actually fuels terrorism, he can present a mirage of justice while remaining arrogant and detached. But he can't do that forever.