Jim Moran's News Commentary

Rep. Moran represents Virginia's 8th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, that includes the City of Falls Church

The No Child Left Behind law is not working. It's not working in the Eighth Congressional District and it's not working in Virginia. There is a great deal of resentment from teachers and parents alike about the law's arbitrary regulations, lack of flexibility and the lack of funding needed to implement the goals prescribed by the law. Instead, the end result is that the law often times punishes the children it purports to help.

The Republican-controlled House of Delegates in Virginia's General Assembly, in fact, rejected the implementation of the No Child Left Behind in a non-binding resolution that passed 98 to 1 as an example of bipartisan opposition to the new law.

In Virginia, educators are also concerned that the new law is draining resources from their own successful attempts to implement an accountability plan known as the Standards of Learning.

States and localities are forced now to teach to the test, which requires more resources and profound changes in many cases to their traditional education curriculum and teaching methods. Yet, President Bush's budget under-funds the new law by $9.4 billion in fiscal 2005, which begins on October 1, 2004.

And as a requirement of the new law, Virginia's Department of Education was required to spend $7.7 million to modernize its computer systems just to track students' testing as part of the new law. But the federal government is only providing half of the cost of the technology upgrade.

Those harmed the most by the new law are children with special needs and those children with limited English proficiency. Both groups are required to meet the testing requirements of the new law regardless of the extend of their disabilities or level of literacy in their native language.

A large portion of the Eighth Congressional District includes Fairfax County, which is the 12th largest school district in the country. Fairfax County Public Schools are in the unique position of educating nearly 50 percent of Limited English Proficient (LEP) in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The new law gives children with limited English skills three years to meet mandatory testing requirements, but studies indicate that it takes at least five to seven years for these children to fully grasp the language and academic material. This law is not fair to these children who are just learning the ways of this country. They need to be given a chance to succeed, not an opportunity to fail.

Northern Virginia schools feel like they are set-up to fail under the No Child Left Behind law. It's a "Catch-22" situation. On the one hand, students who have limited English proficiency are expected to test and meet federal language fluency requirements. Yet, when those requirements are met, schools are not given the appropriate recognition for educating first generation Americans because it is not noted as adequate in yearly progress reports. Schools should not be punished for their successes.

While overall education spending is up by 3 percent in this year's budget, it is still the smallest increase in eight years. Drastic cuts are also in store for education funding over the next five years. This year, $15.2 billion is proposed for federal spending on secondary and elementary education, but in fiscal 2006 that number drops to $14.8 billion.

Overall, the federal government spends just 2.8 cents of every taxpayer dollar on education.

Education Secretary Rod Paige said at this week's Budget Committee hearing on the department's budget that more money doesn't necessarily translate into a quality education. I agree.

But when the federal government mandates children meet certain testing standards without giving schools the funds and resources needed to meet those higher standards, it does become a question of funding.

So what are the President's priorities? With the $181,700 the average millionaire will receive as a result of the President's proposal to make the tax cuts permanent we could provide after-school programs for 208 children, health insurance for 74 uninsured children, or Head Start for 22 preschoolers.

President Bush's education budget and policies continue to leave millions of children behind and are negatively affecting the reputation of Northern Virginia's schools and educators.