Education law misses mark

President George W. Bush signed a bipartisan bill Tuesday that makes sweeping changes to the country's system of education, his No. 1 domestic priority. We applaud efforts to increase academic achievement at our public schools, but take issue with federal testing requirements.\nThe new law will require schools to test annually every child in grades three through eight in reading and math proficiency as well as science.\n"The bill we sign today will bring a new purpose and a new focus to the federal government's role in education," Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), the bill's chief House sponsor, told The Associated Press.\nAnnual "report cards" will show each school's standardized test scores, comparing them with local and state schools. If schools fail to improve scores in two consecutive years, they could receive increased funding to help achieve higher scores. And schools not showing improvement over six years could be restaffed. \nWhile testing students may seem an appropriate method to ensure schools have adequate and consistently improving educational standards, it will inevitably lead to a misplaced focus from teaching subjects to teaching tests. Schools will know what the students will be tested on, so they can focus on those areas on the tests -- something we fear will inadvertently mean lost opportunities in other areas, such as music, arts and electives.\nIt's hard to believe that the Republican Party tried several years ago to close the U.S. Department of Education entirely, saying then that the federal government had no role in education. The federal government should have a role, but mandatory testing of all students in all public schools is ill-advised. Money spent on testing alone is significant and perhaps could be better used to beef-up areas of education in which we already know we have problems. \n"In my administration, federal money will no longer follow failure," candidate Bush told The Associated Press. \nPresident Bush is correct in demanding some accountability for federal tax dollars, but the schools that are failing are the ones in need of more resources aimed at alleviating many different problems, including skills in reading, math and science.\nTeachers are underpaid. Schools are understaffed. Many schools need to be renovated to fix leaks, add air conditioning and sufficient heating and other structural problems. Washington will never know from a test on three subjects what each school district needs to be more successful, and basing federal funding on that one standard is inappropriate. The time and money expended on this annual test alone will further burden school districts that should focus on the subjects at hand.\n