Debate Grows on True Costs Of School Law

By David J. Hoff

Depending on who's talking, the Bush administration's signature education law either imposes an onerous financial burden on schools or provides enough aid for states and schools to administer it.

The Ohio Department of Education, for example, released a study last month estimating that the state will spend about $1.5 billion a year—more than twice as much as it now gets from the federal government under Mr. Bush's K-12 initiative—to meet the administrative costs and achievement goals of the No Child Left Behind Act.

And while Virginia's Republican-led House of Delegates didn't have such a study to cite, it nearly unanimously passed a resolution Jan. 23 declaring that "the law will cost literally millions of dollars that Virginia does not have"...