March 16, 2003

States of Crisis

Reg Weaver
President, NEA

State governments are being hammered by the worst fiscal crisis since World War II. So when the nation's governors came to Washington for their annual winter meeting last month, they issued a bipartisan cry for federal help. At the very top of their agenda: an urgent plea for Washington to keep its promise to fund expensive mandates in special education and in the new federal education law.

I sympathize with the governors. They are sailing into the perfect storm: plunging tax revenues, soaring health care expenses, and the exploding cost of federal mandates. As a result, states are facing budget deficits that are expected to reach $80 billion in the year ahead.

Unlike their counterparts in Washington, though, state leaders cannot put off hard choices. Painfully and reluctantly, they are taking sledgehammers to their public schools. Many states are raising class sizes and cutting teacher positions. In New York City alone, up to 2,700 teaching positions would be eliminated. In Oregon, weeks of instruction are being lopped off the school year, and many other states are cutting back to four-day school weeks to cut costs.

When Congress passed the new federal education law, it promised an increase in funding to give high-poverty public schools a fighting chance to meet the higher standards required by the law. But now Washington has reneged on that promise. Funding for the new federal education law falls short by $11 billion. Funding for special education is shortchanged by an additional $11 billion. Our elected officials have passed the buck-the lack of bucks-to the states.

After the governors' dinner at the White House, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said, "President Bush was honest and frank. He told us there's no money for anything." Yet that same week, Washington offered upward of $26 billion in new grants and loans to Turkey, and the House began action on $726 billion in new tax cuts.

Frankly, I am concerned not just with the budget gap, but also with the credibility gap. When Congress passed the new federal education law, for example, it pledged that by the spring of 2006 (just three years from now!) every public school teacher will be fully certified and "highly qualified." But one year later, where is the progress? There are still some 200,000 noncertified teachers, most of them in schools serving poor, minority, and immigrant children-the children left behind.

America's governors are wrestling with the gritty challenges of implementing the new federal education law. To get the job done, they have set aside partisanship and bickering. It is time for our political leaders in Washington-Democrats and Republicans alike-to do the same. If they are serious about leaving no child behind, then they also must be serious about leaving no teacher unqualified-and no mandate unfunded.

Reg Weaver

President, National Education Association

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