The five-month summer

In a world monopolized by economic woes, national security and sex scandals, education is usually a topic that gets swept under the rug.\nHowever, with the democratic primaries just around the corner, education has managed to grab some of the spotlight.\nThe centerpiece of the argument is the No Child Left Behind Act. While Bush has been tramping around in different parts of the country celebrating its second anniversary, democrats are bickering over who hates it more.\nThe Jan. 12 edition of the New York Times quoted Gen. Wesley Clark as calling the act "a failure" and Howard Dean as saying it was "making American education worse, not better."\nAll over the place, people are either condemning or praising the act for placing pressure on schools to improve test scores, lessen class sizes and find better teachers.\nThe democrats also pounced on Bush for failing to secure funds for such a venture. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the democratic house leader from California, vocalized the complaint in a congressional press release.\n"President Bush and congressional Republicans have refused to honor their commitment - for 2004 they provided nearly $8 billion less for the No Child Left Behind than they had promised just two years before."\nAccording to the 2004 Budget of the United States Government, Bush requested $12.4 billion for Title I programs, the basis for No Child Left Behind.\nBush needs to honor his promise and cough up that money (preferably out of his defense budget, approximately $380 billion for 2004), but he needs to put it to better use than in the No Child Act. There are more fundamental matters that need to be fixed first.\n"Oregon cut the school year off. They just said we are quitting 30 or 60 days early and that's how they balanced the budget," said Indiana Representative Matt Pierce on WFIU's Noon Edition, Jan. 2.\nBob Garton, the Indiana State Senate President Pro Tempore, coupled Pierce's comment with "The state of Florida is even considering dispensing with the senior year in high school because of a budget crunch."\nHow ironic that the No Child Act threatens closure to schools that don't improve when schools are closing anyway.\nAmazingly, this isn't the first time Oregon has closed early because of their budget. Last year 90 school districts closed at most 17 days early, according to the Sunday Oregonian. Now, they're doing it again.\nAccording to a Dec. 20 Associated Press article, Jeremy Lyon, an Oregon superintendent, said the other option to cutting school days was assigning 60 students per teacher.\nHere is how things stand right now: \nBush wants to financially reward schools that improve and he wants to sanction schools that fall short of that goal.\nSchools cannot improve if they don't get the funding first. On the contrary, they're cutting teachers, salaries and school days to make ends meet.\nState residents refuse to pay extra state taxes to alleviate the problem. Oregon will vote on a proposed tax hike for education in February, but according to the same AP report, "Polls and history both show that Oregonians are unlikely to approve any new taxes."\nWe saw the same thing in Bloomington several years ago when residents voted against an MCCSC tax hike in Nov. 1999 by a 2 to 1 margin, according to Herald-Times reports.\nRewarding schools for academic improvement makes sense. However, before this can fairly happen all schools need to start on a level playing field. The No Child money would be better spent bringing schools up to speed in order to make academic improvement possible. If this doesn't happen, a lot of children are going to be left behind.