The Reagans

[gldstwmn]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/...in592216.shtml

No Slogan Left Behind

"After making war not peace in 2003, our president is taking advantage of the New Year and Democratic fratricide to dress up in his compassionate conservative costume again. First it was kindler, gentler immigration reforms, then an anniversary party for his favorite bill-that-became-a-law, the No Child Left Behind education program.

The NCLB (I can't use the whole, silly slogan again, I'm sorry) celebration is an especially ironic affair, and not just for the president. Bush is trying to collect the political capital from NCLB just as many states and school systems are rebelling because they don't have the real capital (or the desire) to comply with the burdensome law...

When NCLB passed, schools were told they would get some more federal dollars to help comply. But the program has not been close to fully funded, as the president essentially admitted on anniversary day when he said he fund boost his 2005 budget request by about $2.1 billion, which critics will say isn't nearly enough.

NCLB has become a dreaded "unfunded mandate" as they call it in political science seminars.

And increasingly, schools and states are looking for ways to tell the feds to take their unfunded mandates and stick them up their appropriations committees. A few schools and school districts in Vermont and Connecticut have already told the federal government to keep its money, they're not going to comply with NCLB. Some schools in Virginia are debating doing the same."