With local school districts absorbing for the first time some of the consequences of the federal No Child Left Behind Act just as state education budgets are being cut back for lack of revenue, it is safe to assume that the centerpiece of the president’s domestic policy is about to be debated again. The debate this time, however, is less likely to take place in Congress than town hall, where the price for meeting the tough new education standards will be felt most acutely. This is an ideal time for Washington to rediscover its respect for local control.

The act, which is best known for measuring learning outcomes and demanding that schools make continuous improvement, steps in where states have traditionally stood, keeping watch over local school districts and urging or mandating improvements in quality. The federal act leaves some issues up to states, but not many and, as districts have discovered, not in providing flexibility for the requirement that schools make yearly progress for each racial and demographic subgroup – including, for instance, low-income or special-education students – or be labeled a low-performing school. This eventually brings with it different sets of penalties. States have until the end of the month to show how they will meet the standards.

By the 2005-06 school year all states must have begun to test students in math and reading annually in grades three through eight, and once in grades 10 through 12. Science tests in some but not all grades follow soon after. The Maine Department of Education is hoping that its testing program in fourth, eighth and 11th grades along with the large number of other measures in Learning Results will meet the federal standard. Failure to meet the standards after a couple of years could lead to potential pay-outs of Title 1 reading funds for students who transfer to another school. After that, continued failure could mean a school would be required to provide tutoring with no additional funding or be forced to rewrite curriculum. Finally after four years of failing to improve, a school would largely fire its staff, reopen as a charter school, have a third party run the school or ask the state to do it. And it looks like federal education officials really mean it this time.

Coincidental to the concerns about meeting the high standards is a Dec. 24 memo from Maine Education Commissioner Duke Albanese announcing a nearly million-dollar cut in the state’s out-of-district special education account and a $3 million cut to spending for state agency clients and state wards. Still, Gov. King is nearly $25 million short of closing the current revenue gap and concluded that he cannot do so without major disruption to programs, requiring legislative action, so the next governor, John Baldacci, will face the question of whether to cut the largest single expense in the state budget, general Purpose Aid to Education, to make it balance.

Forty-four states had revenue shortfalls this year; all are looking for savings or to pass costs along to municipalities. No Child Left Behind is an expensive, intrusive piece of legislation that will require property taxpayers to contribute considerably more if local schools are going to take on the increased testing, class time, record-keeping and course offerings needed to be successful. If this is act is to work at all the administration will have to trust local government more than it does now and Congress will have to find more funding. Without both happening the debate at town hall will change from how to pay for the act to how to kill it.