Mixed grades for NCLB on second anniversary.

Two years after President Bush signed the landmark No Child Left Behind act, its report card is mixed. Bush and Republicans in Congress hail its success to date and promise more finding, while Democrats attack the administration for not spending enough. Some educators are raising critical questions about the law's effectiveness in improving student achievement. More than a quarter of public schools are on academic probation, according to a study by the Center on Education Policy.

NCLB is "making a difference around the country," Bush said in a January visit to the West View Elementary School in Knoxville, Tenn. He cited a nine point increase since 2000 in fourth-grade math test scores nationally and a five point jump for eighth graders. Reading scores also are up, said Bush, who credited "accountability measures and good teachers and more funding."

Federal funding for NCLB totaled nearly $46 billion in the first two years, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That represents a 34 percent increase in dollars for major elementary and secondary education programs, says Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.), who saluted the act's achievements in a column in The Seattle Times. Her own state, she noted, received over $360 million last year.

But Democrats are unleashing a torrent of criticism. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) acknowledges that NCLB "is still the right reform for our schools," but charges that the Bush administration "has cut its finding, reneged on promised resources ... and worked to divert millions of dollars to private school vouchers." The president's 2004 budget provides schools with $7.5 billion less than promised and his 2005 budget "will leave over 4.6 million children behind, Kennedy says.

Paul Houston, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, says that NCLB punishes schools instead of rewarding the progress of individual students. Administrators should be expected to hold all students to high standards, Houston asserts, but "expecting all groups of students, including special education and English language learners, to meet the same academic targets at the same time is the equivalent of expecting a weekend cyclist to keep pace with Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France." He adds that "the arbitrary targets established in the law have resulted in nothing more than 50 different versions of the law in 50 different states."