Back to Leave No Child Behind

Certainly. The Dems' continued appeals to the intelligence and nobility of the American people is trumped by the Reps' baseless rhetoric of fear and appeals to their baser nature.

Many characteristics are familiar. Consider:

• Students did best who had well-educated parents with good paying jobs and more "cultural" possessions in their homes. Students did poorly in countries with large socioeconomic inequalities in the distribution of educational opportunities.

• Students did best who had attended a quality pre-school program.

• Students did best who had parents who read to them when they were young, helped with homework, attended meetings at school and provided a two-parent environment. A quiet place to study, a computer and access to classic literature, books of poetry and art and a dictionary also helped.

High-quality teachers were also an important factor. In Finland's case, success is attributed to the fact that the teaching profession is revered there. Teachers are paid better than many other professionals such as doctors and lawyers.

In short, countries with high-scoring students show it in the way they treat education. They're serious. If we want the same success, we should get serious too.


© 2004 Charlotte Observer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.charlotte.com

The problem is that this site doesn't control for confounding variables, thus they run the risk of providing only a partial picture of what's going on. For example, the study they cite regarding average class size includes all classes--private school and special education classes tend to be substantially smaller than regular education public school classes. Thus the figures concerning class sizes is probably smaller than the average regular ed. public school class.


This link discusses funding disparities; how do you extrapolate the above comment from it. If you look at the schools that are spending the most per student, you'll know where the money goes--state of the art facilities and resources.

I don't think so Mills because just looking at NM stats alone, I believe the per capita spending does not include capital expenditures. And how can you know that the stats include private and parochial schools? I don't know whether they do or not, but normally such statistical compilations do not.

Per capita spending simply takes the total amount of money spent annually and divides it by the number of students--capital expenditures are included in those figures.

The report cited for these figures (the same report is cited for the spending, class size, and proficiency test results) make some distressing omissions. It generally doesn't discuss how data was collected and admits that the sample sizes used for determining average class sizes were very small. The report simply does not detail whether or not average class size was calculated using only regular ed. classes or not--this makes the source problematic.

Emphasis is mine

No Child Left Behind is starting to work

Dan Rose, a businessman and philanthropist, recently visited China and became aware of the fact that the Chinese are now graduating 10 million high school students a year who cannot speak English, but who can read and write English. His question was, "I wonder how long it will take the Chinese, at this rate, to end up with more people who can read and write
English than we have in the United States?"

Those sorts of education "miracles" are fairly easy within totalitarian systems because an unambiguous decision at the top can lead to successful practice if the necessary components are in place. Those who are not attracted to totalitarian methods in order to achieve success should take heed of what is now happening in the world of American public education, where reform is taking place against the will of the teachers union.

The United Federation of Teachers has said that No Child Left Behind is a measure that has been misapplied since it was enacted. But the recent spike in math and reading scores for states including Delaware, Ohio, Maryland, Illinois and yes, New York, says otherwise.
The union is invaluable in terms of representing teachers as a labor group for collective bargaining. But the union also is the greatest enemy of public education. It has far more often than not fallen into the pit where unions can become menaces to society because quality work takes a backseat to keeping its membership employed and increasing its benefits.

Only a fool would assume that teachers or any other labor group could get a fair deal if they had no numbers behind them. For all of the screaming and hollering, however, No Child Left Behind, as recent figures and testimony have shown, is beginning to work because the bill takes the position that failure is no longer an acceptable option.

What this proves, and what we must learn from the beginnings of success in this arena, is that the only way that ingrained social programs can be effectively handled is by city, state and federal government committing to measurable change. Beyond racism and class contempt, there is the ongoing problem of laziness, the presence of layabouts disguised as teachers who disgrace the profession and bring a bad name to those many serious educators whom they hide behind.

In capitalism, things change as often because of money as they do because of morality and deep thinking, so it is always smart to attach money to morality and vanguard conceptions. Then the choice of profit over deficit can bring about better results. Once the federal government made it clear that no funds would be forthcoming unless there were improvements in student performance - which meant improvements in teacher performance - things began to change.

We have now been freed from a debilitating illusion, which was that those children unfortunate enough to be born the wrong color or in the wrong class were just incapable of learning. When we get rid of that kind of hogwash, we get ever closer to realizing the potential of our richly diverse population and move closer to putting up a good fight for the world markets that places like China and India intend to take as many of as they can.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ideas_opinions/story/316186p-270541c.html

A lovely opinion piece completely devoid of any intelligent content. If you practice taking a test, you will do better on that test. The quickest way to get results on a standardized test is to practice taking the test; the spike in scores only proves that students are becoming better test takers.

Several writers here claim that class size doesn't matter.


National Public Radio is running a series of reports on the trend toward tutoring.

Tutoring is the ultimate small class.

NB: This was set up as a syllogism.

Hmmmm....smaller class sizes leads to higher quality learning and better performance (it's a little like the Priceline Commercials where Bill Shatner acts dumbfounded to observe people shopping and comparing before they buy)...maybe it's too obvious.

Atkins, You are correct; tutoring is the answer. As a matter of fact, some San Jose State University students and faculty adopted several schools in San Jose and helped tutor the students, and the results are amazing. The number of students planning for college increased by over 80 percent! I'll try to dig up that San Jose Mercury article and post it here.

I would like to ask plainoldme why she (I assume plain is a woman) left this thread.

I found the treatment you received at the hands of several members beyond the pale.

A group of very right wing, very fundamentalist Christians known as the Domionists have the destruction of the public schools as their aim.

It looks like several people here are in agreement with them.

Well, wouldn't you know. Bush is cutting fuding for No Child Left Behind. Federal mandate, anyone? More private research organizations are finding the drop out rates for high school students is on the increase, and this administration would have everybody believe NCLB is improving education in our schools.

The case for No Child Left Behind
By George F. Will
Thursday, June 23, 2005

It is enough to give any observer of American politics intellectual vertigo. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings heads a department that, 10 years ago, many Republicans vowed to abolish in order to limit federal intrusion into a state responsibility.

Yet George W. Bush's administration has increased the department's budget by 40 percent -- more than the Defense budget. Had 9/11 not happened, Bush's administration might be defined primarily by its education policy, particularly the No Child Left Behind law.

But the nation's reddest state, Utah, where Bush won 72 percent of the 2004 vote, is sounding like South Carolina in 1860: Were there a Fort Sumter nearby, Utah would shell it.

Utah has opened fire on a federal target -- Spellings -- to protest NCLB.
Nevertheless, she is serene, and not because the 3,341 artillery rounds fired at Fort Sumter killed only a horse. A sassy Texan -- she can say "We're all good federalists" with a straight face -- she sometimes seems to be spoiling for a fight. She says Utah's, and some other states', lack of serenity stems from the fact that NCLB is doing what it is supposed to do -- reveal embarrassing facts.

To build accountability on a firm foundation of data, NCLB requires states to measure, with recurring tests, progress toward the "proficiency" of all students by 2014. It also requires -- Spellings says this is Utah's grievance -- states to disaggregate its data to reveal the progress of subgroups, including minority and low-income students, those learning English and special-education students. This is to prevent states from reporting a general progress that masks certain groups being left behind.

One test shows Utah's Hispanics three years behind whites in the same grades. Hispanic fourth-graders in Utah have worse reading skills than their Hispanic counterparts in all but two states and the District of Columbia.

Connecticut, another state strenuously protesting aspects of NCLB's implementation, has the nation's highest per-capita income -- and large pockets of urban problems.

In 2003, Connecticut's black fourth-graders scored 37 points lower than whites in reading and 33 points lower in math, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the "nation's report card" by which states' progress is measured under NCLB. Connecticut's 2003-04 Mastery Test showed a significant disparity between white eighth-graders who were proficient or advanced in reading and math and Hispanic and black eighth-graders.

The theory propounded by supporters of NCLB is that by identifying lagging groups and failing schools the law will agitate business communities concerned about the quality of local work forces and will embarrass governments and parents. Until 2014, when NCLB requires universal "proficiency."

Of course it might as well require lobsters to grow on elm trees.

In 1994, Congress, with "Goals 2000," decreed that by 2000 America's high school graduation rate would be "at least 90 percent" and students "would be first in the world in mathematics and science achievement." Pat Moynihan compared those goals to Soviet grain production quotas -- solemn without being serious.

In 2000, the graduation rate, inflated by "social promotions," was about 75 percent. And among students of 38 nations, Americans ranked 19th in mathematics, right below Latvians, and 18th in science, right below Bulgarians.

The problem with American education is not public parsimony, it is the habits and values prevailing in private -- in American households. America has tripled inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending in the last four decades and since 2001 has increased federal spending for grades K through 12 by 37.4 percent.

By now, informed Americans know that money is a very limited lever for moving the world of education. And schools reflect the families from which their pupils come -- the amount of reading material in the homes, the amount of homework done, the hours spent watching television, etc.

Hence the importance -- but also the limited power -- of the lever of embarrassment. Spellings expects NCLB's high expectations to be substantially self-fulfilling because she "thinks the best" of people -- parents and school officials -- at the local level. But if they really are as vigilant, diligent and susceptible to embarrassment as she assumes, why do we need NCLB?

Anyone who thinks parents hunger for greater academic rigor should try to get parents to pay the price -- more dollars for more school days and, even less tolerated, decreased vacation time for little Tommy and Sue and their parents -- of increasing America's approximately 180-day school year, which is 40 to 60 days shorter than in much of the rest of the industrial world.

The power of embarrassment, indeed.
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/will/s_346660.html

Fox, Did you know George Will is a neoconservative, and supports this administration with all the vigor and lies that that entails?

If you really want the TRUTH, read the stuff in the link below. You can quit spreading your conservative lies anytime.

Otherwise, show us proof the claims made in the linked articles are lies. The balls in your court.

edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/photos/FY06budgetsummary.pdf#search='Bush%20cuts%20in%20funding%20for%20NCLB'

Poor Margaret Spellings.

You woulda figured that with her stance on the "Buster" issue, Utah woulda contained her staunchest following.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Spellings

"Yet George W. Bush's administration has increased the department's budget by 40 percent -- more than the Defense budget."

I'll not only show this is an outright lie, I'll also show that Bush's NCLB has always been underfunded.

Prepared by:
Democratic Staff, Committee on Education and the Workforce
U.S. House of Representatives
INTRODUCTION

In an effort to ensure that public schools educate all children, Congress passed in 2001 and President Bush signed into law in 2002 the bipartisan No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The goal of the law is simple: to eliminate the academic achievement gap among different groups of students so that all children have the opportunity to succeed in school. Despite the bi-partisan consensus and goodwill that was achieved through this historic legislation, one of the two fundamental promises made to America's families was broken immediately after the bill was signed into law. Since 2002, the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans have refused to fund the law at the levels they originally agreed to, hampering the ability of teachers and schools to fully realize the goals established in this law.

NCLB promised two things: tough reforms to hold schools accountable for the education of their students, and adequate resources to help them uphold the higher standards they were expected to meet. The reforms are being put in place. All of the money that was promised, however, is not.

The success America's public education system is closely linked to our commitment to ensure that all children have access to resources that promote academic achievement. Essential academic resources include quality early childhood education, effective after school programs, adequate services for students participating in special education, appropriate English-language instruction for speakers of other languages, and highly qualified teachers.

While NCLB holds great promise, the Bush Administration and Congressional Republicans have consistently failed to allocate authorized resources. To date, nearly $27 billion has been withheld from America's public education system. This means that major education programs, such as Title I for disadvantaged students and special education, continue to be significantly under-funded. The President and Congress have turned their backs on our schools, leaving them without the resources they desperately need to ensure the highest quality education for every child in every school.

Democrats in Congress are fighting for full funding and fair implementation of NCLB:


Full funding for NCLB. Democrats introduced H.R. 4473, to provide full funding for NCLB. Republicans have blocked the bill.

Extra funding for Title I schools. Over half of Title I schools - schools that serve the most disadvantaged students - will lose funding next year. It's not fair to ask these schools to do more while giving them less. Democrats introduced H.R. 4769 to ensure sure no Title I school will lose money next year. The Republican leadership refuses to bring it up.

Fair implementation of NCLB. Some schools were recorded as not meeting one of the key measurements under NCLB, known as Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), that shouldn't have because they had to calculate it before the Department of Education provided information on how to count certain children. It's not fair to punish schools just because the Administration was slow in providing information. Democrats introduced H.R. 4605, to allow schools to recalculate AYP using the new, fairer criteria. Republicans oppose our bill.

President Bush's Proposed FY 2006 Federal Budget for Education

In his budget request to Congress for fiscal year 2006, President Bush has proposed a $2.57 trillion budget that would either freeze or reduce spending for many domestic programs and employ a five-year plan for deficit reduction. The budget proposes 48 "program terminations" that affect education, totaling $4.3 billion, including $2.2 billion for high school programs such as vocational education.

Here you go C.I.

NCLB Pumping Gas into a Flooded Engine?
2005 report on funding - budget and state by state
http://www.house.gov/ed_workforce/issues/108th/education/nclb/nclbfundingreport.pdf

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND
Implementation Station
As a result of the No Child Left Behind Act, the federal government today is spending more money on elementary and secondary (K-12) education than at any other time in the history of the United States. Federal K-12 education funding to states and local schools has increased by an historic $6.9 billion (from $17.4 billion in FY 2001, the final Clinton budget, to $24.3 billion in FY 2004) since the hallmark education reform legislation was signed into law.

Title I aid for disadvantaged students, the cornerstone of the No Child Left Behind Act, has increased by 41% since 2001, to $12.3 billion for FY 2004.
In fact, Title I funding received a larger combined increase during the first two years of President Bush''s administration than it received in the previous seven combined under President Clinton.

Despite the twin challenges of war and economic uncertainty, President Bush and Congress have expanded funding for all of America ''s education priorities. Research and opinion polls consistently show Americans believe the most important factor in improving America ''s schools is high standards and accountability for results - not spending. Republicans in Congress, under the leadership of President Bush, have provided both the resources and the reforms Americans want for education.
http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/108th/education/nclb/funding.htm

Riverdeep Announces Successful Reading, Math Program in Ohio That Draws Increased NCLB Funding
Business Wire; 10/7/2004
SAN FRANCISCO & CANTON, Ohio -- Destination Success(TM) Expands to Ten Schools after Helping to Turn Things around at a Failing School
More schools in Canton, Ohio have received No Child Left Behind Funding to adopt an innovative approach to reading and math instruction, after one elementary school went from having the worst performance in the district to having the best -- in the course of one year.
Fairmount Elementary School went from a 38% pass rate on the state's fourth-grade reading test to 83% passing after adopting an intensive instructional model that featured ...
http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?docid=1G1:122925977&refid=ink_tptd_np&skeyword=&teaser=

HISTORIC EXPENDITURES FROM NCLB FUNDING SOURCES
http://www.state.sd.us/legislativeaudit/NCLB/Chapter%203%20historical%20expenditures.pdf

Education Funding: Setting the Record Straight on Education Spending Myths
January 2005

Excerpt


Simply spending more money is not the answer to the problems facing America ''s schools. High standards, accountability for results, and increased parental involvement are all essential to improving education and ensuring no child in America is left behind.

Research and opinion polls consistently show Americans believe the most important factors in improving America ''s schools are high standards and accountability for results -- not spending. Republicans in Congress have provided both the resources and the reforms Americans want to improve education. More than ever is being spent -- and more than ever is being expected.

Since Republicans took control of the House in 1995, federal education funding has increased significantly. Funding for the U.S. Department of Education has increased by nearly 150 percent from $23 billion in FY 1996 to $57 billion in FY 2005.

In fact, government data suggests federal education funding has increased more quickly than states can spend the money, with states sitting on billions in unspent No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and special education funds. As of November 12, 2004, states were collectively sitting on $8 billion in federal education funding, with sixty-seven percent of these unspent funds designated for federal school improvement, special education, Title I, and other programs for economically disadvantaged students. Nearly $350 million of these unspent education dollars were appropriated during the final years of the Clinton Administration (FY 2000, FY 2001) -- before NCLB was enacted into law.

No Child Left Behind. States and local school districts are expected to receive $24.4 billion in federal funds in FY 2005 to help implement the No Child Left Behind Act, accounting for a forty percent increase in federal elementary and secondary education funding since President Bush signed NCLB into law.

Title I aid for disadvantaged students. Title I aid for disadvantaged students, the cornerstone of NCLB, has increased more during the first two years of President George W. Bush''s administration alone than it did during the previous eight years combined under President Bill Clinton. In FY 2005, Title I received $12.7 billion, an increase of forty-five percent since NCLB was signed into law.

Special education. The federal government is not yet paying its fair share of the cost of special education as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Fresh off of three consecutive increases in IDEA funding under President Bush, special education grants are funded at $11.4 billion in FY 2005, representing the highest level in history and over three times the amount provided in 1995. Throughout the Clinton Administration, Republicans in Congress routinely provided more money for special education than President Clinton requested.

Teacher quality. When President Bush signed NCLB into law in 2002, it signified a 38 percent increase in federal funding for teacher quality -- an increase of $787 million over President Clinton''s last budget. In FY 2005, states are provided $2.91 billion for professional development programs to provide states and school districts with tools to improve teacher quality, in addition to $179 million to increase the number of teachers trained in the fields of math and science.

Head Start. In FY 2005, funding for Head Start is increased to $6.9 billion, allowing Head Start to maintain current services while ensuring that quality improvements and training elements are fully implemented.

Pell Grants. The maximum Pell Grant award is funded at $4,050 in FY 2005. In recent years, Republicans in Congress, later working with President Bush, have increased the maximum Pell Grant award by sixty-four percent -- from $2,470 in FY 1996 to $4,050 in FY 2005.

Reading First. Funding for the Reading First and Early Reading First programs are increased to $1.15 billion in FY 2005, enabling states to ensure all children can read by the time they reach the third grade through scientific research-based reading programs.

State Assessments. States are provided $412 million to help cover the costs of developing annual reading and math assessments in FY 2005.

Charter Schools. In FY 2005, states are provided $217 million for charter school grants and $37 million to help enhance charter school facilities.
T
RIO and GEAR UP. Funding to help minority and disadvantaged students prepare for and succeed in college is increased to $837 million and $306 million, respectively, in FY 2005.

Democrat leaders and their allies continue to charge that proposed and enacted appropriation levels for the No Child Left Behind Act provided less funding than ""authorized"" under the law. However, when they were in control of the White House and Congress, Democrats used the same approach to fund education in 1994, the last time the Elementary & Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was reauthorized -- yet not a single Democrat leader accused President Clinton or then-Majority Leader Gephardt of providing ""less than promised"" for education. The total authorization level for the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994 (IASA) for FY1995 was $13 billion. However, IASA activities were appropriated at $10.3 billion for FY1995 -- a discrepancy of $2.7 billion. Yet not a single Democrat accused President Clinton of ""underfunding"" elementary and secondary education by $2.7 billion.

The House Democratic leadership''s budget for FY 2005 provided billions less for the Title I program for disadvantaged students than the NCLB law technically authorized, even as leaders of the minority criticized President Bush for funding education programs in that manner.

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report in May 2004 discrediting claims that the No Child Left Behind Act is an ""unfunded mandate."" The GAO reviewed more than 500 different statutes and regulations enacted in 2001 and 2002, including Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports about NCLB, and officially concluded NCLB is not an unfunded mandate. According to the report, NCLB ""did not meet the UMRA''s [Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995] definition of a mandate because the requirements were a condition of federal financial assistance"" and ""any costs incurred by state, local or tribal governments would result from complying"" with conditions of receiving the federal funds.

A report by The Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy (www.jbartlett.org) estimated that NCLB would be a financial boon for New Hampshire . The study estimated the costs associated with complying with NCLB -- providing highly qualified teachers and paraprofessionals, new testing requirements, technology plans, and special education -- to be approximately $7.7 million. Factoring in the $13.7 million in increased federal education aid coming from NCLB, the study concluded that New Hampshire would receive an extra $6 million in federal education aid to spend on other state and local education priorities in 2003.

A major national cost study released by AccountabilityWorks in February 2004, a non-profit research organization, showed that states are profiting handsomely from the education spending increases triggered by NCLB. The authors'' analysis estimated states would collectively receive a surplus of $787 million in federal No Child Left Behind funding for the 2004-05 school year, a surplus that could increase to $5 billion by the 2007-08 school year. The report also recognized states are under no obligation to accept the federal education funds that accompany the No Child Left Behind requirements, and cautioned against attempts to attribute costs to NCLB that the law does not impose.

Results from another report, published in the Spring 2004 edition of the policy journal Education Next by two Massachusetts state officials (state board of education chairman James Peyser and state chief economist Robert Costrell), concluded the federal government ""overshot the target"" in terms of funding NCLB by providing more money than some states need to make it work. Total federal spending for K-12 education grew significantly from 2001 to 2003 as a result of No Child Left Behind, Peyser and Costrell noted, resulting in an $8 billion funding increase that is sufficient -- if not more than sufficient -- to allow states to meet NCLB''s current expectations.
http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/109th/education/funding/fundingmyths.htm

Democrat Leadership Budget Doesn't "Fully Fund" No Child Left Behind
UPDATED: October 7, 2004
Democrat leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives -- who have criticized President Bush and congressional Republicans for proposing budgets that would spend less money than technically authorized for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education reform law -- have offered a budget of their own that would do precisely the same thing, providing billions less for the Title I program than the NCLB law authorized.

Democrats have repeatedly suggested that if they were in charge of Congress and the White House, their budgets would "fully fund" No Child Left Behind and other education priorities. But now that they've been forced to explain how they would pay for everything they claim to stand for, Democrats can't deliver.

Republicans have long noted that the authorized spending levels in NCLB are spending caps -- not spending "promises." If the authorized spending levels in the No Child Left Behind Act truly are 'promises,' as Democrats claim, why are Democrats offering budget proposals that spend less money than the law authorized?

The budget offered by House Democrat leaders as an alternative to the Republican budget resolution for FY 2005 would provide a maximum of $15.4 billion in funding for No Child Left Behind's Title I program - $5.1 billion less than the $20.5 billion cap technically authorized. [Under President Bush, annual Title I appropriations have jumped from $8.8 billion under President Clinton to a proposed $13.3 billion under President Bush's proposed FY 2005 budget. Title I received a larger increase during the first two years of the Bush administration than it did during the previous eight years combined under Clinton .]

The Title I increase provided in the Democrat leadership budget is far smaller than the increase Democrats have previously claimed is needed to implement NCLB -- and in order to meet the $15.4 billion figure for Title I, Democrats would have to provide no further increases for other education priorities such as special education, reading, teachers, or higher education.

What President Bush and Congress promised in NCLB was that federal education spending would increase dramatically and be tied for the first time ever to accountability for results. That is exactly what has happened.

The Democrat leadership budget is further proof Democrats don't really believe authorization levels mean as much as they say they mean. The Democrats' attacks on President Bush's education budgets are merely political.
MORE FACTS DEMOCRAT LEADERS DON''T WANT YOU TO KNOW

When Democrats were in the majority in Congress, they did not consider authorization levels to mean "promises." Case in point: the federal education law prior to NCLB, passed in 1994 by a Democrat Congress and White House, authorized spending of up to $13 billion on Title I, but Democrats appropriated just $10.3 billion to implement it. Not a single Democrat accused President Clinton of failing to provide adequate funding for education.

Senator John Kerry's own state of Massachusetts has analyzed NCLB's costs and found the law is adequately funded -- and possibly overfunded in some states. A report published in the February 2004 edition of the policy journal Education Next by two Massachusetts state officials (state board of education chairman James Peyser and economist Robert Costrell) concluded the federal government "overshot the target" in terms of funding the law, providing more money than some states need to make it work. (http://www.educationnext.org/20042/22.html)

Republicans appropriated more than Clinton requested for special education. Similarly, during the 1990s, Republican Congresses consistently appropriated more money for IDEA than requested by Democrat President Clinton, but not a single Democrat accused President Clinton of underfunding special education.

Major media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, have recently blown the whistle on the NEA for making inaccurate claims about the authorized funding levels in the NCLB law. On January 28, 2004, after initially accepting the NEA's inaccurate claim that the NCLB Act "authorized $32 billion in funding for 2004," the Times ran a correction rejecting the NEA assertion and noting that the law does not authorize or promise a specific amount in funding for 2004. In 2003, the New York Times printed a similar correction after initially accepting reform opponents' false claims about NCLB's funding levels.

DEMOCRAT RHETORIC ON EDUCATION DOESN''T MATCH DEMOCRAT ACTION