No Child Left Behind law makes no sense

The federal No Child Left Behind law probably isn't going to get a lot tweaking during the remainder of George W. Bush's presidency.

If I were the next president, it would be among the first laws I'd seek to sunset. I have more faith in my local and state school board running my schools than I do the federal government.

Every year when the "annual yearly progress" results are released, the absurdity of NCLB is revealed anew. The federal government, you see, grades on an all-or-nothing curve. If a school fails to meet goals in 40 categories, the federal law deems that the school has failed to make AYP, even if it's just one category. Sheesh, what kind of sense does that make?

Sorry, federal government. I don't buy for a minute that Olympus High School somehow doesn't meet proficiency standards. Ditto for Alta High School or Bountiful High School. Over the years, I've developed my own report card for schools. Some of it comes from years of poring over standardized test score results. There may be statistical variations year to year, but the trends don't lie.

Another of my yardsticks is the Deseret Morning News-KSL TV Sterling Scholar program. The scholarship program pits the academic cream of the crop in intense competition for recognition and scholarships. It's fair to say the eventual winners generally come from schools with very strong academic traditions.

But I worry about how the NCLB reports are used. If someone was moving to Utah and trying to decide where to send their children to school, would they assume that Murray High School was a troubled school because it didn't make AYP? For the record, I do NOT think Murray is a troubled school. I think it's a fine school.

Should schools and school districts have report cards? Of course. But they should make sense. Can someone tell me the point of making the grade on 39 of 40 measures and being labeled as not making adequate progress?

Some testing directors fear that in upcoming years the standards will become so ridiculous that no school will pass muster.

Many members of Utah's congressional delegation are vocal critics of NCLB. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, is a former schoolteacher. He thinks the whole effort should be shelved. The federal government, he says, should have no part in operating local schools.