Studies Show Massive Cost of Meeting NCLB Mandates

In a report published in Phi Delta Kappan in May 2003, William Mathis, a superintendent and professor of education finance in Vermont, estimates bringing all students up to proficiency on state standards as required by the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) could require increases of $84.5 - $148 billion in education spending. (For more on NCLB’s requirements for testing and showing adequate yearly progress towards 100% proficiency, see ACCESS’s policy brief on the law). For comparison, the current federal Title I appropriation is $11.3 billion.

Mathis reviews recent studies from ten states--Indiana, Maryland, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, and Wisconsin--that estimate the costs associated with meeting NCLB mandates. While the studies were conducted by different researchers using different methods, they consistently found that providing a “standards-based” NCLB education for all children would require massive new investments in education spending. Seven of the ten studies show increases in base cost that are greater than 24%, and of these, six were between 30% and 46%. The studies also attempted to quantify remedial costs to bring “at-risk” students up to standards, with eight of the ten finding real additional costs to be approximately 100% higher, that is, double the cost of regular instruction. Using these estimates and the current national K-12 education spending of $422.7 billion, Mathis shows that a conservative estimate of 20% of added costs would translate into a national increase of about $84.5 billion; a more generous (but by no means unreasonable) estimate of 35% of added costs would translate into a national increase of about $148 billion. In this time of budget cutting, state and local governments are hard pressed to maintain current levels of education services, let alone make the significant spending increases that will be required to meet NCLB's expectations.

Inadequate spending is only one of the potential stumbling blocks to meeting NCLB’s mandates. Mathis also offers persuasive critiques of several of the other assumptions--that all students and all subgroups of students can reach meaningful high standards, that tests are the appropriate means of assessing whether students are learning effectively, and that imposing sanctions on schools whose students fail to perform at expected levels will lead to higher levels of performance--that underlie the accountability structure imposed by NCLB. He calls on actors at all levels to make a renewed commitment to adequately funding education, to embracing true accountability, and to working together for “repeal or massive revision” of NCLB so that it can achieve its promise to leave no child behind.

Prepared June 5, 2003