Bush leaves Queens kids $172M behind!

If children are to avoid being left behind, the money must not be neglected, either.
That was the message sent loud and clear in a report issued Saturday, October 13 by Congressmember Anthony Weiner.
The Congressman chided the Bush Administration for its failure to meet funding promises for 2002’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), not only in Queens, but throughout New York City and the nation. Weiner also called on Congress to reevaluate “the very premises upon which NCLB was built.”
In 2007, said the report, Queens was promised almost $322 million in NCLB funding, but received less than $150 million, creating a $172 million - or 53 percent - shortfall. As a whole, New York received $973 million less than it was promised in the federal government’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget.
NCLB, signed into law by President Bush in January of 2002, aims to improve the country’s education system by calling on states to set standards for teachers and students. School districts are required to implement procedures to ensure that educators are competent, as well as standardized tests to make sure students are learning.
The justification for such rigorous testing, Weiner explained in his report, is that students and school systems failing to meet standards would receive federal funding toward improvement.
Since 2002, however, Queens has received $600 million less than its determined need, while New York City as a whole has been shortchanged about $3.3 billion. Throughout the country, Weiner said, schools have been snubbed $70.9 billion in NCLB funding.
“Every year since its passage, President Bush has failed to provide the funds the law’s own formulas say school districts need to excel,” said Weiner.
If Bush’s FY2008 plan is any indication, the trend may continue. In addition to plans to cut 44 programs funded as part of NCLB, Bush plans to decrease funding for programs like English as a Second Language (ESL) and various technological improvements of schools nationwide.
Weiner’s report outlines steps Congress must take to improve NCLB, calling on his colleagues to amend the law in a way that “relieves schools and students of the burden of the NCLB testing regime, measures accountability in a way that rewards student improvement…increases support for research-based methods to help struggling schools, [and] provides districts and schools the funding they need to best teach their students.”