No Child Left Behind: Funded or Underfunded?
Every year, critics claim that the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is not "fully funded," an "unfunded mandate," or "under-funded." Members of Congress frame their side of the annual Appropriations battle by either supporting or contesting these claims. The debate typically involves one of three funding topics: authorization levels, federal funding mandates, or the additional costs associated with NCLB.
"Full Funding": Authorization Levels vs. Actual Appropriations
Education advocacy groups often criticize Congress and the President for not "fully funding" NCLB programs based on the authorization levels in the original NCLB legislation. Authorization levels reflect the maximum level at which Congress may fund a program. In contrast, appropriations levels reflect the amount of money Congress actually spends on a program. It is not mandatory for the federal government to meet authorization levels. In fact, Congress has not appropriated the full authorized funding level for Title I since NCLB was enacted in 2002, but this is a common practice for legislation that includes authorization levels.
Congress included funding authorization levels for five of the 45 authorized NCLB programs, totaling $28.9 billion for Fiscal Year 2007 ($25 billion for Title I-A). When a frozen level of funding is assumed for the remaining 40 programs, NCLB’s total authorization level equaled $39.4 billion in Fiscal Year 2007. This is the commonly cited NCLB full funding figure.
The Title I, Part A grant program, the largest source of NCLB funding for school districts, is one of the five programs governed by authorization levels through Fiscal Year 2007. The decision to include these levels in NCLB stands in contrast to most reauthorizations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which have not included specific year by year authorization levels, but instead set a funding level for the first year and then authorized "such sums as may be necessary" for succeeding years.
Even if Congress did not expect to fully meet authorized levels, it still has not shown a substantial commitment to boosting NCLB funding since the original increase associated with NCLB’s passage in 2001. Federal appropriations for Title I have remained fairly flat, while the authorization levels increase by $2 billion to $2.5 billion each year. This means that appropriations have become a smaller and smaller percentage of the authorization levels since NCLB was passed—from 76% of the authorized level in Fiscal Year 2002 to 51% of the authorized level in Fiscal Year 2007.
No "Unfunded Mandates" in Discretionary Grant Programs
Because of the extensive accountability requirements attached to NCLB funding, states have argued, unsuccessfully, that NCLB is an "unfunded mandate." For example, the State of Connecticut sued the federal government in 2005 for allegedly forcing the state to spend millions of its own money on additional NCLB testing. A federal judge dismissed Connecticut’s lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds, essentially putting an end to the state’s challenge.
But NCLB does not mandate that states participate in the legislation and its accountability requirements. All requirements are a condition of funds. While it would be difficult financially for a state to sustain the loss of federal education funding, theoretically a state could choose to opt out of NCLB. Thus it is inaccurate to refer to NCLB as an "unfunded mandate" because the law’s requirements do not become effective absent a voluntary assumption of responsibility by states.
Not Unfunded, But "Under-funded"
When states chose to implement NCLB’s requirements, they were assured by the federal government that NCLB funding would cover a significant portion of the new costs. And the new costs—for test administration, data collection, and school improvement reforms—have been significant. Because there is evidence that the federal government has not adequately supported these implementation costs, states also often claim that NCLB is "under-funded."
Several state legislatures have requested estimates of how much it will cost their state to fully implement NCLB and reach the legislation’s goal of full proficiency by 2014. In Ohio, for example, a study estimated that the state will have to spend about $1.5 billion more on education each year to meet NCLB’s additional accountability requirements and achievement goals. In Fiscal Year 2006, Ohio received $634 million from the federal government for NCLB programs.
The hardest figure to estimate is the cost of school improvement for failing schools, including the cost of intensive academic support for failing students. There are many alternative methods for raising student achievement, and it is difficult to identify the exact type of intervention that will be most effective in a specific school. It is reasonable that people will disagree on how much it costs to "turn around" schools and students.
However, in recent years NCLB Title I funding has not even covered minimal school improvement reform costs in some states. For example, NCLB requires that states set aside four percent of their Title I funds specifically to turn around failing schools. But a "hold harmless" provision in the law prevents states from lowering grant amounts to districts below their previous year’s grant as a result of this set-aside.
The combination of the hold harmless provision and flat funding in recent years has meant that 29 states in 2007-08 will not be able to reserve the full four percent for school improvement, and three states—Florida, Hawaii, and West Virginia—will not be able to set aside any money for school improvement. President Bush and Congress are working to fix this "under-funding" of intervention efforts by creating a separate funding stream specifically for school improvement. For the first time in Fiscal Year 2007, Congress appropriated $125 million for new "School Improvement" Grants.
