Mr. Martinez, for himself, (And Mr. Cherry (DNC)) submits:

A BILL

That repeals the No Child Left Behind Act and creates programs designed to educate our children instead of merely turning them into test takers.

1. Statements

- Over the past century, our country has been one that has developed innovations and technologies that have become commonplace throughout the world.

- Our country has also developed several of the most brilliant minds in a multitude of fields over that same period.

- Our system has failed children in the last 20 years, most noticably in urban and rural areas, where the quality of teachers are much more difficult to maintain.

- A significant number of children suffer from anxiety when it comes to test taking, therefore leading to a misrepresentation of their real progress.

2. Enactments

a) The No Child Left Behind Act is hereby deleted from the United States Code.

B) The Congress hereby enacts provisions for federal funding to public education in the following manner

1) An increase in funding, not to exceed one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) per year, to go toward recruiting and salary increases for teachers in urban and rural areas in order to offer incentive for higher quality teachers to select and stay in said districts.
2) Funding not to exceed one billion, five hundred million dollars ($1,500,000,000) per year to outfit above listed districts with updated equipment and textbooks in order to increase the quality of education.
3) Funding not to exceed five billion dollars ($5,000,000,000) per year to go toward construction of new classrooms in order to ease overcrowding and increase the interaction a student gets with a teacher.
3) The establishment of non-standardized tests and real-life performance as the bar for further funding of school programs. Standardized tests will only give a ballpark figure as to where the districts stand, rather than tying money to performance on a test score.
4) The establishment of a target goal of a ratio of no more than 24 students per teacher (24:1) in any class at any time by the year 2010. School Districts that meet the target class sizes will receive additional funding to compensate for any additional cost increases that may occur in order to maintain above class sizes, up to a nationwide maximum of five hundred million dollars ($500,000,000) per year.



This legislation will take effect beginning January 1, 2005 and will expire on December 31, 2010 unless by Congressional vote and Presidential signature the Act is extended for another five-year period.