No Child Left Behind

....or an alternative title: when campaign slogans are left behind.

From McSweeney's Daily Reason to Dump Bush:

DAY 33:

In 2000 Bush said:
"I am going to ask Congress to bolster the first year aid from thirty-three hundred dollars to five thousand one hundred dollars per recipient of the Pell Grant... Increasing the first-year Pell Grant will make college much more affordable for low and middle income students."

For the past three years the President has cut or frozen the maximum value of the Pell Grant. The administration's new budget for 2005 does not increase the overall value of the grant.

In February 2004, the administration proposed that students who take a "rigorous" courseload in high school get an additional $1,000 added to their Pell Grant.

However, the Bush administration is asking for only $33 million to fund the new program. That is enough for only 33,000 out of today's 15.8 million college students. In 1976 the Pell Grant covered half of the cost of tuition, room and board at a public college. Since then tuition has risen faster than the value of the Pell Grant. The grant now pays for one-fifth of the same costs.

The Education Department predicts that it will fall $3.7 billion short of what it needs to pay all the college students that qualify for the grant this year.

(Source: Bush speech, Hampton, New Hampshire. 8/30/00. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040120-7.html. June Kronholz, "The Bush Budget Proposal: College Grants and Loans Get $4.4 Billion Boost," The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2004. http://edworkforce.house.gov/democrats/pellgrantsummary.html)

Note: All this is in light of the soaring costs to attend a college these days and a nationwide decrease in the average wages.

As we creep toward the November election, it may be appropriate for the President to ask his famous question again.