Anything to avoid an F

Could the No Child Left Behind Act backfire? The get-tough education-reform bill, signed with great fanfare by President Bush eight months ago, mandates annual testing and promises to hold students and schools to a higher standard. But now that the Education Department has released its first list of nearly 9,000 failing schools, some states contend that the standard is too high, and a growing number are taking steps to lower the bar by which students are judged.

Last week Utah announced it was removing some of the more difficult questions from its statewide exams. Ohio recently "refined" its criteria for calculating low-performing schools; afterward, the number receiving Fs fell from 760 to 200. Michigan, California and Nevada are weighing similar actions. Says California's state schools chief Delaine Eastin: "We're almost surely going to have to lower what we define as proficient." Experts warn that the incentive to dumb down standards will only grow as the stricter provisions of the new law take effect, a move that could brand more than 70% of schools in some states as failing.

Eastin and other state schools chiefs will take their gripes to Education Secretary Rod Paige this week. He does not appear likely to give any ground. "All these people are running around wringing their hands," Paige told Time. "But there's one way to reduce the number of failing schools I'm hearing very little talk of — increasing student performance."