Inquirer Editorial: Leave this bill behind

The House last week passed a bill that would gut the landmark No Child Left Behind law, returning most school oversight to states and districts. While there is plenty in the law that requires fixing, the House legislation would be a major setback for public education.

No Child Left Behind, passed with bipartisan support and signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, was due for reauthorization in 2007. But Congress has been unable or unwilling to reach a compromise on an update.

Though it's not popular, No Child Left Behind has changed education for the better. It forces schools to focus more attention on disadvantaged children who often are left behind, including minority and special-education students. It requires states to test students in language and math annually in grades 3 through 8, and once during high school. It also holds schools accountable for meeting benchmarks and making "adequate yearly progress."

But from the start, the standards were unrealistic for many low-performing districts like Camden and Philadelphia, where fewer than half the students met the benchmarks. The law imposed unfair sanctions against schools that were slow to progress, and it labeled others as failing. And critics complain that it forces schools to "teach to the test."

President Obama has repeatedly called on Congress to overhaul the law. He has also proposed improvements to it, such as rewards for schools that do better and adequate funding for its mandates.

Because of Congress' failure to act, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has had little choice but to grant waivers from the law to more than three dozen states in exchange for reforms. But these exemptions were supposed to be stopgaps.

The House bill, backed by most of the chamber's Republicans and opposed by Democrats, would retain the law's annual testing requirement, but not much else. It would drastically shift course by giving the states more latitude to set academic standards, decide how to spend federal funds, handle failing schools, and determine whether and how teachers are evaluated.

It would also freeze education spending at reduced rates in the wake of the across-the-board cuts known as the sequester. That means schools nationwide would receive $1 billion less next year.

The bill has drawn justified opposition from the president, teachers' unions, and civil rights groups.

A better option offering more room for compromise has been crafted by Senate Democrats. It would give states more leeway but retain substantial federal oversight.

Rather than dismantle No Child Left Behind, Congress needs to fix it.