No Child Left Behind Act: Is it an Unfunded Mandate or a Promotion of Federal Educational Ideals?, The

Journal of Law and Education, Apr 2008 by Umpstead, Regina R

Others argue that NCLB represents an evolution of the federal role in education rather than a radical departure from past practice because NCLB's features of standards, assessments, and accountability are extensions of the framework contained in the most recent prior versions of the law and the surrounding federal and state policy context.47 To see this progression, the federal government's relationship through ESEA's Title 1 with states and local districts has been categorized into three distinct periods.48 First, during the period of 1965 to 1980, the law established a categorical program that operated at a distance from the regular education programs of local schools, primarily through classroom pullouts where economically disadvantaged children received additional instruction outside of their regular classrooms.49 second, during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, ESEA's scope and funding were downsized but the national rhetoric surrounding it focused on ensuring excellence in education for all students.50 Third, since 1988, ESEA's goals have become more tightly linked to the states' educational priorities while simultaneously shaping those policies to concentrate on academic standards, achievement, and assessments for all students.51 Thus, NCLB's basic policy framework can be seen as an outgrowth of the original ESEA because it builds on its goal of improving the educational opportunity for certain disadvantaged students as it has been adapted to the changing political and educational environment over its forty-year history to include a concern for the overall quality of education in the U.S. and attention to the achievement of additional "disadvantaged" student groups.52

C. Educational Funding in the U.S.

To frame the NCLB unfunded mandate debate, it is also important to understand the magnitude of the financial commitment being made to public education in this country at the federal, state, and local levels. Public spending on K-12 education in the United States was $536 billion in 2004-05." State sources account for about 83 percent of the revenue spent on K-12 education-generally through a mix of property, sales, and income taxes. Federal sources account for approximately 8.3 percent of the revenue spent on education, and private funding, mostly for private schools, account for the other 8.9 percent.54 Overall, federal education spending in 2006 was $36 billion.55 In the fiscal year 2002, the year following NCLB's enactment, federal education funding increased $4.7 billion-or 26 percent-over the previous year.56 After three years of growth, federal appropriations for education programs began to taper off in fiscal year 2004 and slowed in fiscal year 2005." Federal NCLB funding has held steady in 2005, 2006, and 2007, at $12.7 billion annually.58 Yet, because of the relatively small share of funding provided by the federal government, the increase in federal funding due to NCLB amounts to only about 2 percent of total K-12 appropriations.59 It is against this historical and financial backdrop that the NCLB unfunded mandate debate has evolved.