Can't Buy Love.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Education: President Bush has given schools their biggest boost in aid in decades. But he insists on standards and results. For that, teacher unions want him out.

If you're in a battleground state, you may have seen the ads. If you're within earshot of a public school, you've probably heard the griping. The president's education reforms are under fire. But what, exactly, has Bush done wrong? Has he given the schools too little money?

That charge is laughable, though some pretend to take it seriously. Under Bush, federal school aid has had its biggest rise in any single presidential term since the 1960s (see chart alongside), when such aid became a major expenditure.

Several independent studies, including a 2003 report by the General Accounting Office, show that federal allocations are adequate to fund the added requirements of No Child Left Behind.

The law authorized higher spending when it was passed in 2001, but that was simply an upper limit, not a "promise" to be kept. All the Democrats who voted for the bill knew the difference between an authorization and an appropriation.

School establishment pillars such as the teacher unions know the ropes of school finance, too. They can fake outrage about the money, but they know it's been several decades since Washington treated schools so generously. What really riles them, we suspect, are the conditions placed on the largesse.

Schools receiving aid for the first time have to meet standards to avoid penalties, and both the standards and penalties are meaningful. Students of ...