It was a modest proposal, really. The resolution before NSBA’s Delegate Assembly in Orlando last Friday would have supported states that wanted to collaborate in creating voluntary regional standards and to seek federal funds for those efforts.

No big deal, right? Especially since something similar was on the books from last year’s meeting in San Francisco.

Wrong. And to see why, just focus on one word: federal. To many in NSBA’s legislature, “federal” suggests intrusion into state and local prerogatives, and in this case, perhaps, a slippery slope to national standards.

Talk about paranoid! You’d think the federal government was -- let’s see -- requiring every school in the country to raise the achievement of every student to a miraculous level of “proficiency” in six years. Or vowing to pay 40 percent of the cost of educating special education students without anteing up the money. Or requiring states and districts to set up vast testing infrastructures without helping to fund them. Or demanding that all teachers, from Altoona to Albuquerque, be “highly qualified “by ….

Oh.

Maybe they’re not so paranoid after all. Because, after flying home to chilly Reagan National last night after four days at NSBA’s National Conference, I had the distinct impression that -- its marvelous cherry trees notwithstanding -- Washington’s not too popular with school board members right now.

The good news is that changes will surely be made to NCLB’s rigid accountability system and to other aspects of the law once it is reauthorized. The bad news: With all the tumult of the presidential elections, that might not happen until 2009 or even 2010.

In the meantime, many districts are finding themselves in what one Florida board member dubbed a “perfect storm” of dwindling local and state funds, burgeoning numbers of low-income and ELL students, and increasingly stringent federal demands.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor