Senate Bill 196 "An Act creating the George W. Bush No Child Left Behind school grant program and repealing the quality school funding grant program; and providing for an effective date."
Click for PDF: http://www.akdemocrats.org/sponsor/SB196_ss_sen_guess.pdfThis bill establishes a grant program to school districts for compliance with the Federal No Child Left Behind Laws, and names it after President George W. Bush (the GWB NCLB grants). The bill's purpose is to roll the current Quality School grant funding and the Learning Opportunity grant funding into one grant program focused on the new federal requirements.
The funding for this program would be $210 per student plus the cost differential in statute. The estimated cost would be $30.3M, $3.6M more than the FY03 funding for the quality school grants and the learning opportunity grants combined.
The GWB NCLB grants differ from the past grant programs in three ways. First, unlike LOGS, they are in statute. Second, it is a grant program focused on specific requirements and measurements. Three, if a school district reaches the requirements of the new Federal law then it will continue to receive 25 percent of the grant monies for classroom learning. It is an incentive to work towards the goals of NCLB.
We should always be careful with the use of public funds, especially in tough economic times. The new GWB NCLB grants would be a focused, efficient way to use public funds for supporting the education of all children and heeding the President's call to “leave no child behind.”