Dollars better off left behind

The News Virginian / News Virginian
Published: March 10, 2008

Their feet firmly entrenched in a mire of red ink, Virginia lawmakers led by Del. Steven Landes, R-Augusta, stand ready to respond to the latest advances of their well-heeled bully suitor, the federal government, with a suitable cuff to the cheek. Landes is the sponsor of a House bill that would yank Virginia from the federal No Child Left Behind program, a well-intentioned initiative that positions local classrooms squarely in the pervasive gaze of big-government's little-knowing eyes.

Landes' bill and companion legislation in the Senate are in conference. Virginia would be the first state to withdraw from No Child Left Behind, a move that would cost the commonwealth about $300 million annually in federal money.

Passed in 2001 as the signature program of President Bush's domestic agenda, No Child seeks to make teachers accountable and students competent by requiring states to administer standardized tests focusing on the basics.

The goal indicated by its moniker is what Washington wonks call "universal proficiency" by 2014, which translates to every student in America achieving competency in math and reading. This noble ambition, bear in mind, came to us from a president who treats the English language like a punching bag and a Washington bureaucracy proficient only in expanding its girth while feeding voraciously on tax money and an all-it-can-eat buffet of policy minutiae.

Because No Child allows states to establish the standards and to craft their own tests, many tiptoe around the law's intent by setting the bar low enough that even the heaviest afoot can inch over the threshold. Proficiency scores vary along with the difficulty of state tests. A band of train-hopping hobos is more uniform.

Virginia is one of many states that chafe at No Child. Twenty-one have considered resolutions critical of the law. Much of that opposition is driven by unions resistant to efforts to hold teachers accountable. At least a few of their beefs are credible. No Child compels teachers to build curriculums around standardized tests at the expense of such vital subjects as history and the arts.

We have opined before that No Child's most significant flaw is a central and irremediable one: it attacks local control, putting centralized government, both at the state and federal levels, in charge of local classrooms. Parents are removed from their proper roles in shaping local education in cooperation with school officials and teachers, people whose faces are familiar as opposed to those mindless, faceless bureaucrats in the halls of federal power.

Education is only one among a multitude of areas in which federal government has lumbered into state and local domains. Like a rotund Casanova with little to offer but a fat wallet, the feds accomplish this by waving dollars by the tens of millions, and threatening correspondingly to withhold the dough if states fail to clamber aboard the Washington gravy train.

Just saying no to federal education money would carry a nasty sting for a state that began the year with a $641 million budget gap. But Landes and those who support him are right to do so. We urge other states to follow suit. For once, the feds might find that allure of confiscated cash has its limits.