First, we ditch No Child Left Behind

Alabama, for instance, went from 22nd to fifth in the nation in one year in terms of how it met the No Child law's requirements. In one year, the percentage of Alabama schools meeting adequate yearly progress went from just over half to almost 90 percent. But the report said Alabama students really hadn't learned more at all. The state just lowered its standards. Alabama still has one of the nation's worst high school graduation rates, and it does poorly on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test.

It isn't alone. A recent editorial in the Daily Jefferson County Union in Wisconsin wondered how the Dairy State's own tests could show 81 percent of fourth-graders are proficient in reading and 77 percent in math, when the national assessment test showed 35 percent are proficient in reading and 47 percent in math. There were similar disparities in eighth-grade results.

"From where we sit," the editorial said, "giving tests with low standards not only misleads parents and taxpayers on the effectiveness of our educational system but also gets in the way of helping students be all that they can be."

I'd go a step further. It's cheating them. Comparisons between states mean nothing when everyone defines standards differently. Besides, the real tests ought to measure our kids against the world. That's the arena in which our children will compete for jobs and careers.

We need to get serious about school reforms. But we can't do it through idiotic federal mandates. True education reform will be painful, but it can't happen until Congress junks No Child Left Behind.

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Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com