AS CONGRESS begins to debate the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, our children are left waiting for the nation's leaders to stand up and provide a sound vision for their educational endeavors.
While standardized testing, teacher accountability and partisan rancor dominate the discussion, the actual reforms that need to take place continue to be muted by the unwillingness and ineptitude of our leaders to change the direction of the conversation and provide innovative solutions to our current educational crisis.
The time has come for the federal government to stop its irresponsible propensity of enacting unfunded mandates. In 2006, President Bush called for $22.8 billion in new initiatives, yet asked the U.S. Congress to fund only $13.3 billion of them, leaving the state governments to pick up the bill for close to $10 billion.
