Anna Lukemeyer

The No Child Left Behind Act Have Federal Funds Been Left Behind

The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) imposes new requirements on state education systems and provides additional education funding. This article estimates education cost functions, predicts the spending required to support NCLB standards, and compares this spending with the funding available through NCLB. This analysis is conducted for Kansas and Missouri, which have similar education environments but very different standards. We find that new federal funding is sufficient to support very low standards for student performance, but cannot come close to funding high standards without implausibly large increases in school-district efficiency. Because of the limited federal funding and the severe penalties in NCLB when a school does not meet its states standards, states have a strong incentive to keep their standards low. NCLB needs to be reformed so that it will encourage high standards.

The Cost of Caring: Childhood Disability and Poor Families

Children in poor families are at heightened risk for disabilities and chronic health problems, and care for these children can impose substantial costs on families and public programs. Although the prevalence and costs of disabilities among poor children have important policy implications, they have been largely overlooked in research on poverty and welfare and on the costs of childhood disabilities. This article analyzes the prevalence of childhood disabilities and chronic illness among welfare recipient families in California and the probability families caring for these children experience higher out‐of‐pocket costs and material hardship than do other similar families.