Every parent learns quickly the rule that if you make a promise to a child, you had better make good on that promise or suffer the dire consequences for sacrificing your credibility. If you say watching "Nemo" comes after toys are picked up, you better have that little clownfish in the DVD player once the task is completed or the bonds of trust will be painfully broken. Once lost, credibility is never fully recovered. Unfortunately, the current Administration in Washington has failed to learn the fundamental lesson of keeping promises.

Nowhere is the current Administration's record of broken promises causing more problems than in education. Two years ago, at the Administration's urging, Congress overwhelmingly passed the President's No Child Left Behind Act to overhaul federal education law and demand accountability from our schools. In exchange for these tough new requirements, the President and the Administration promised bold and ambitious funding to make these education reforms work.

Unfortunately for our schools and our children, the Administration has failed to live up to its promises to fund No Child Left Behind. On February 2, President Bush submitted to Congress the budget for next year, and for the third consecutive year, he has failed to provide the promised resources for the new law. This budget falls $9.4 Billion short, and for the first three years of the law's existence, the Administration has shorted America's schools a whopping $27 Billion. This budget cut will break the promise of extra help with reading and math through Title I to more than 53,000 children in North Carolina. While it might seem like a lot of money, the Bush education budget barely covers the cost of inflation and is the lowest increase in nine years. The Bush budget also eliminates dozens of key education initiatives, including literacy, leadership and drop-out prevention efforts.

In addition to its education cuts, the U.S. Education Department is administering the new law in an extremely rigid manner that threatens to shake public confidence in our schools. By the department's calculation, only 46.9 percent of our state's schools last year achieved Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP, as defined by the agency. This dubious mark comes despite the fact that North Carolina has been widely recognized for school improvement of historic proportions.

We in North Carolina have nothing to fear from accountability. In fact, our state has led the nation in accountability-based education reform, and much of the No Child Left Behind legislation was modeled after the innovations we pioneered. Real reforms can work wonders when backed with adequate resources. That's why I voted for the No Child Left Behind Act. But I have said from the beginning that tough reforms without resources will not work and amounts to cruelty to our children. The federal government must honor its commitment and fully fund No Child Left Behind or our children, our schools and our communities will suffer severe damage from this unfunded mandate. Unfunded federal mandates force local communities to raise taxes, or cut spending on other critical priorities, or both.

Across the country without regard to political party, states and local school systems are struggling to overcome this funding straightjacket. The Republican Virginia House of Delegates last month passed a resolution calling for an exemption from the requirements of the new law. Maine, Utah and other states are studying the feasibility of opting out of all federal aid for elementary and secondary education as a means of coping with the Bush Administration's broken education promises.

For the past two years, I have been working with my colleagues in Congress and pro-education groups to convince the Administration to keep its promise to provide the funds necessary to fulfill the promise of No Child Left Behind. Sadly, not only have we met resistance from the Administration but we have been answered with vehement contempt.

The Administration's hostility toward those who seek to fix the problems of No Child Left Behind was demonstrated with ugly clarity this month when US Education Secretary Roderick Paige called National Education Association officials "terrorists" for opposing the Administration. Although he later apologized for his poor choice of words, neither he nor the President has disavowed the sentiment of confrontation and animosity rather than cooperation and consensus building.

Our children and our schools deserve better than this Administration's endless broken promises. Congress must act to hold the Administration accountable for No Child Left Behind. I have introduced legislation to do just that. My bill, H.R. 2366, will require Congress to provide full funding for the No Child Left Behind Act each and every year that the program is in existence.

Accountability is a two-way street. Congress must act to force the Administration to keep the promise of No Child Left Behind.

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