No one knows yet how much the federal school reform, No Child Left Behind, will cost, but it’s not too soon for states to start asking for more money because a couple of educated guesses suggest the current funding level isn’t all that close. Maine Reps. Tom Allen and Michael Michaud this week joined in a simple but dramatic solution: Force the Bush administration to either fully fund the costs of the program or waive the unfunded federal mandate.

This is not the best way to make policy, but given the ongoing frustration in statehouses nationwide with Washington’s inability to fund the special-education mandates it issued 25 years ago, it may be the best way to ensure more costs are not dumped on the states.

The Government Accounting Office recently examined the question of how much the additional testing would cost states. It concluded that between 2002 and 2008 $1.9 billion would be needed if tests were solely multiple choice; $3.9 billion, if states continued to use the mix of questions they report using now; and $5.3 billion if they used some multiple-choice and some open-ended questions, such as short essays. The NCLB law requires Congress to provide at least $2.34 billion for state testing costs for that time. Clearly, if the tests are going to be as substantial as the Maine Educational Assessment, the federal money is inadequate. And just as clearly, states that currently have more demanding standards for the tests they currently use should not weaken their standards as more children are required to be tested under the federal rules.

Governors didn’t have to wait for the numbers to look at the federal demand for more and better training for teachers and paraprofessionals and the increased testing to conclude that NCLB was going to cost them more than what Washington was providing. The National Governors Association last February included the new education standard along with Medicaid, special education and homeland security as an “unfunded mandate” that deserved more federal support. Even penurious New Hampshire found the level of federal funding lagging. According to a report by the New Hampshire School Administrators Association, NCLB creates a minimum of $126 million (or $575 per student) in new costs to local taxpayers while sending only $17 million ($77 per student) in federal support.

This is not yet a crisis in education; most states will muddle through on the money that has been allotted, just as they have with other inadequately funded federal programs – the collective shortfall in special education would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars to Maine alone. Don’t expect it soon. But the House waiver bill makes sense especially now because states should not be forced to accept a burden they did not seek while they are in their deepest fiscal crises in more than half a century and Congress is handing out tax cuts like party favors.

Reps. Allen and Michaud earlier this year proposed legislation that would have fully funded special education ($9.5 billion) and NCLB ($5.2 billion); but the ideas of all members with Ds next to their names rather than Rs count for something less in the GOP-controlled House. In the Senate, both Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe have expressed concern about the underfunding, with Sen. Collins voting during the budget debate to increase NCLB funding by $8.9 billion. It didn’t pass, but she is currently trying again to secure that funding.

Such a measure would face a difficult time in the House, which is focusing intently these days on expanding tax cuts. Such behavior could inspire even majority-party members to sign onto the pay-or-waive legislation.