Thousands of schools labeled by NCLB as chronically failing are in poor districts. How can schools in places like inner-city Los Angeles and Austin, Texas — or in places as close as Detroit, Grand Rapids and Muskegon — that cannot afford textbooks and paper be expected to come up with the money to provide free tutoring and high-quality educational resources?

Unless something changes, they can’t.

Five years of failure should be more than enough to indicate to policymakers that NCLB is not working. These chronically failing schools need financial assistance to improve the quality of their students’ education. They need money to attract highly qualified teachers and administrators and to buy current textbooks, paper, chalk and other resources.

Poor schools cannot get that money from their own communities. They need the government’s financial assistance.

The education budget needs to become a much higher priority for state and federal policymakers, and that money needs to be made available to the schools that need it most. If revised, NCLB could become the vehicle for this critical necessity by providing failing schools with financial support to make the changes the law calls for and quality education demands.

Yes, this would require admitting that one of the Bush administration’s key policies is flawed, and yes, this would require budgetary reallocation and a possible tax increase.

However, if the goal really is to give every American child the quality education that he or she deserves, humility and change are a small price to pay.

Surely every child is worth that.

Helen Crimmins

international relations senior