No Child Left Behind:
Insufficient Funds
The Progress Report

In the school district of Topeka, Kansas, where Bush spoke last Monday, Bush's 2004 budget leaves more than 8,000 students without Title I aid, aimed to assist “public schools with the highest percentages of children from low-income families.” The NYT reports “only days before the Brown v. Board of Education festivities were set to begin, a state judge took the drastic step of ordering the schools shut down unless lawmakers increased the 'hugely insufficient dollars' going to all districts, particularly those with poor minority students.” Similar verdicts have come down in Massachusetts and Montana, where judges noted “that state exams and the federal No Child Left Behind law set concrete academic goals that students have little chance of meeting without more money.” Such rulings underscore the local realities states face as a result of Bush's cuts in funding to states – the situation is exacerbated by state budget cuts stemming from local resistance to raising taxes for education. “For the standards-based approach to have any chance of success,” wrote Judge Jeffrey M. Sherlock of Montana last month, “the state must assure that districts have sufficient resources.” This year alone, Bush underfunds No Child Left Behind by $9.4 billion.

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