Saturday, October 11, 2003 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff

Stunned by the growing number of New Jersey schools missing the mark under the new No Child Left Behind Act, Gov. James E. McGreevey yesterday asked the federal government to "overhaul" sections of the landmark law.

McGreevey in a letter to Education Secretary Rod Paige said the federal government's strict rules for schools to meet student performance levels with every category of students has arbitrarily and wrongfully left too many districts in jeopardy of facing sanctions.

New Jersey's education department in the last two weeks has notified three quarters of its high schools and about half of its middle schools that they are in jeopardy of penalties under the law, such as requirements that they offer students a chance to transfer to other schools within the same district, or receive money for outside tutoring.

Although the state sets the specific performance levels to be met, McGreevey wrote the rigidity of the law's guidelines in which a school can be labeled as failing due to small numbers of children "must be overhauled in order to give our schools a more consistent and less arbitrary reflection of student achievement."

The governor also criticized the Bush administration for failing to match its promises of sizable additional aid for public schools.

"At a time when we are considering spending as much as $87 billion to finance our ongoing military operations in the Middle East, it is entirely appropriate to ensure that we fully fund the bold education initiatives that were enacted last year," he wrote.

McGreevey joins a rising number of mostly Democratic politicians, as well as educators, who have criticized the 2002 law as it begins to take effect in the schools.

Rep. Rob Andrews (D-1st District) served on a House-Senate committee that crafted the final bill yet last week decried the implementation of the new law, saying it is not being followed as intended.

"The problem is that this law, which was appropriate in concept, has become disastrous in practice," Andrews said.