[Sooth2222]

Lawsuits with union backing and demanding more tax dollars to provide for an adequate public school education are becoming more common place

Worldwide, or even state-by-state, is there a positive correlation between spending on education and educational achievement? Or is the correlation negative? (If it's positive, DC public schools must produce just about the highest SAT scores in the country!)

[ClearCase_guy]

Perhaps Bush has not targeted money specifically for NCLB (I don't know if he has) -- but hasn't education funding increased dramatically over the past 4 years? I believe that Bush's financial support for education far exceeds anything Clinton ever attempted.

But, of course, the evil Republicans do not care about the children, and the unions must squeeze more money from the government (how else can the unions hire more administrators to study the process of seeking grants to hire more administrators?)

[teenyelliott]

They claim NCLB is an unfunded mandate

Why does teaching ALL children the basics require additional money? Isn't that what all the money they get now supposed to be for? They get a gillion dollars already. If your typical inner city fourth grader can't read now, I doubt additional money is gonna be the magic key.

Funny thing is, funding for public schools has gone up and up and up over the past few decades, and results have gone down and down and down.

The NEA does not give a rat's butt about children. They are just like any other political lobbyist group/union. Give us more money for crappier results, or we'll just walk out.

Just damn.

[Semper Paratus]

The NEA would support federally mandated higher teachers salaries in a NY nanosecond.

[visagoth]

They claim NCLB is an unfunded mandate

NCLB is not a mandate because the requirements in the law are a result of states and local districts voluntarily deciding to participate in a federal financial assistance program. In order to receive federal financial assistance, schools and local districts agree to play by certain rules. Otherwise, they can decide to opt out of taking federal funds.

Total taxpayer investment in K-12 education in the United States for the 2003-2004 school year was over $501.3 billion, exceeding that for national defense. Federal funding for education is at an all time high and increased point to the 40 percent during the Bush administration.

If they want more money - maybe the districts can look behind their own doors to find money instead of letting things like this occur:

Detroit Free Press, "District repays $20 million stripped from special ed - Oakland Intermediate misspent money on technology, building
http://www.detnews.com/2003/schools/0309/09/a01-266699.htm

Detroit Free Press, "2 Oakland Schools officers won't heed call
for resignation," Aug. 25, 2003
http://www.freep.com/news/education/ois25_20030825.htm

Detroit Free Press, "Oakland board asked to quit," Aug. 23, 2003
http://www.freep.com/news/education/ois23_20030823.htm

Detroit Free Press, "School bosses in Oakland wine, dine and live
it up on taxpayers' dime," Aug. 22, 2003
http://www.freep.com/news/education/ois22_20030822.htm

[JoeFromSidney]

Unfortunately, the easiest way to "close the gap" is to hold back the bright students. Dumb everyone down, and there's no gap. I'd like to see a "No Child Held Back" law instead.

[ozzymandus]

I think more and more people are figuring out that the NEA is the enemy of sound education.