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"No Child Left Behind" Is Flawed
The "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001", which the President proclaimed to "be the cornerstone of my administration", is flawed and underfunded. It is opposed by 47 different organizations, including: The American Association of School Administrators, the National Education Association, the National School Board Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and a bi-partisan group of Senators and Representatives. Many communities (including ours) have witnessed firsthand how the law's rigid, underfunded mandates have interfered with the ability of State and local efforts to boost achievements for all students, and find it troubling that the federal government is requiring local school districts to pay for more testing, private tutoring, transportation, and other costly programs, while having to cut programs which could lead to high paying jobs described in the President's recent State of the Union message. Schools now must focus on meeting federal mandates, while cutting programs in Social Studies, the Arts, and language skills, including foreign languages. In the last four years, the Bush Administration has broken its promised funding by $27 billion and the President's proposed next budget will shorchange our children by another $12 billion and leave millions of children behind. JOIN US in stopping this robbery from the future of America. Vote Democratic in November. |