Lawmakers should admit that No Child Left Behind was an expensive mistake and drop it

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint should not equivocate on No Child Left Behind.

He was right to vote against it when the program was first created. He is right in his intention to vote against reauthorizing it in its current state.

But he is wrong when he declares that it is a major step forward in education. And he is wrong to indicate that it can be fixed.

DeMint says the program should be changed to give states more freedom in how they manage their obligations under the law.

But the entire function of the law is to take educational authority away from the states and put the federal government in a position of overseeing state education efforts.

No Child Left Behind was a federal takeover of education -- one that is more likely to snowball rather than subside, especially if it is reauthorized.

Through this program, federal officials take control of local and state efforts the way they usually do -- by providing states with more money if they do what Washington wants and withholding money if they don't.

The program has not been a great boost toward accountability and educational reform. In some instances, it disrupted those efforts.

South Carolina had already implemented its accountability system before No Child Left Behind. But the new federal process doesn't meld well with the state standards, making it much more difficult for this state's schools to meet the new national standards.

It's not that the federal government should give states more flexibility. That flexibility already belongs to the states. Federal officials should stop stealing it.

Education is a function of state, not federal, government. Washington should back out of the way and let the states run their educational programs without interference.

Bureaucrats in Washington do not know more about what schools in South Carolina need than do educators in Columbia or local school districts. There is no need for them to dictate educational terms.

If the federal government wants to spend money on education, it should do so through block grants to the states, given without restrictions as to how state schools use the money.

If that is unacceptable to the president and members of Congress, they should refrain from meddling with education.