J-S finds foes of NCLB are all talk

In Law's foes are all talk, no action, Alan Borsuk describes the lack of action to challenge the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act. The big news is that there is no news, despite a standing offer from the National Education Association to fund a state challenge and an opinion from Wisconsin's attorney general that the law is an unfunded mandate.

Borsuk suggests several reasons for the lack of a challenge, most notably the amount of aid involved: $76.8 million for Milwaukee Public Schools, about seven percent of the MPS budget. This figure, while hardly small, is a reminder of the relatively minor role of the federal government in the MPS budget.

Bad decisions can take away far more funds from education than the federal government puts in. For example, an earlier article says that $63.9 million of the next budget is to go towards pensions, with most of the increase going towards the second pension plan that encourages teachers to take early retirement. Meanwhile, $195 million will go to health insurance, according to the same article. This suggests that even a very large increase in federal funding would be quickly eaten up by rising MPS health and pension costs. The annual increase in pension and health costs is $23.1 million--or over one-third of total federal aid.