This op-ed by Eric Earling appeared in Idaho Falls Post-Register on January 17, 2006.

Four years after No Child Left Behind took effect, Idaho's elementary reading and math scores are at an all-time high, and the gap between whites and minorities is shrinking.

A Dec. 28 guest column in the Post Register misrepresented the No Child Left Behind law, an important education reform effort. The record should be corrected.

Before No Child Left Behind was passed, many Idaho residents did not know which schools were performing up to standard and which were falling short. Fewer still knew whether certain groups of students—those from minority groups, for example, or from low-income families—were not receiving a quality education.

Thanks to No Child Left Behind, Idahoans now know. And now they can do something about it. The system Idaho has enacted as part of No Child Left Behind is designed to promote accountability by schools and get more information into the hands of parents and educators. Armed with this new information, Idahoans can focus their efforts on helping the students who need it most.

In past years, the real problem with public education has not been a lack of resources. It's been a lack of accountability. Some schools consistently turned out well-educated kids, while others turned out graduates who weren't ready for life after high school.

Those challenges are part of the reason No Child Left Behind was passed by overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in Congress, with President Bush's strong support. More importantly, four years later, we know No Child Left Behind is working. Recently released test scores in Idaho, and elsewhere, showed significant academic improvement, with elementary reading and math scores at all-time highs. It also showed a steadily shrinking achievement gap between white students and their Hispanic and African American peers.

It's important to remember that all 50 states have chosen to participate in No Child Left Behind. In return for dramatically increased funding, states have agreed to be accountable for student results, based on standards and assessments selected by the states themselves. In Idaho's case, that means using the ISAT test in tandem with its own standards for student achievement.

The Dec. 28 column also expressed concern about testing students to make sure they're learning and setting high standards, which we know children can reach. Some adults still choose to set a low bar for children, preferring the comfortable to the challenging.

Consider this: Idaho has a graduation rate of 77 percent, 13th in the nation, yet Idaho ranks only 46th among states in the number of college graduates per capita. Clearly there is room for improvement in the preparation of Idaho's students of today for the jobs of tomorrow—especially considering the competitive global economy in which we live.

With those statistics in mind, it is a good thing that Idaho is now setting a higher bar for its own students under No Child Left Behind. Idaho's own recent ISAT scores verified that the law is working and that students can achieve at higher standards when adults believe in them. As State Board of Education President Rod Lewis said last year, "More Idaho students are performing on grade level than ever before, and some achievement gaps are actually narrowing."

When faced with such evidence, critics routinely fall back on the straw horse of claiming that No Child Left Behind is "largely unfunded." In reality, Idaho received more than $92 million for No Child Left Behind in 2005 alone, a 64 percent increase since 2001. Idaho also received an additional $50 million for special education last year, a 75 percent increase since 2001. That's more than $142 million in federal funds to support Idaho's K-12 schools for just one year!

It's a shame that some adults continue to rattle off shopworn myths about No Child Left Behind—with nefarious claims that local control of education is suddenly now a misnomer, that massive increases in federal funding for education are somehow insignificant, or that more information in the hands of parents and educators is actually a bad thing. Those tactics seem especially silly when we have increasingly strong evidence the law is working in Idaho.

No Child Left Behind is working because it provides two needed ingredients—funding and focus—to help schools improve and students learn. Such change doesn't always come easily or quickly, but it's the right thing to do.

Eric Earling is the the Deputy Secretary's Regional Representative for the U.S. Department of Education's regional office in Seattle.