It's an election year, and Rod Paige, President Bush's secretary of education, is swallowing a huge dose of humility regarding new federal requirements for achievement in public schools. After apologizing for referring to the National Education Association as a "terrorist organization," Mr. Paige has now moved to soften the "No Child Left Behind Act," the administration's policy centerpiece.

"No Child" is not universally popular because it represents additional federal requirements on states and their local schools, ostensibly to improve education, without sufficient money to carry them out -- what taxpayers refer derisively to as "unfunded mandates." A pair of news stories in yesterday's Post-Gazette detailed some of the problems.

One of the most troublesome aspects of the 2002 law is a requirement that teachers in so-called "core subjects" -- mathematics, the sciences, history and the like -- have at least a bachelor's degree in every subject they teach by the end of the 2005-06 school year. That mandate proved unrealistic, especially in small rural districts, where teachers routinely instruct in multiple subjects, and in the sciences. Some experts estimated states would have to raise education spending by up to 30 percent to comply, if they could find enough qualified teachers.

Almost no one argued with the law's main goal -- to get highly qualified teachers into classrooms -- but school officials, many of them from Republican areas, complained some requirements were unworkable.

Legislators in more than a dozen states have adopted resolutions protesting the law as an intrusion on states' rights. In Harrisburg, education officials are calling for a state study, like those done elsewhere, that will show the true state and local cost of implementing No Child.

A New Hampshire study estimated it will cost that state an extra $575 per student. Minnesota said the cost of its additional required testing will be $19 million a year. And an Ohio report said a fully implemented No Child could run close to $1 billion.

Under the new relaxed standards, teachers in rural districts will get an extra year to show they are "highly qualified" in all the topics they teach. States will be given leeway to allow science teachers to show they are qualified in science generally, rather than in each field, such as chemistry or biology, they may teach.

Though that's a positive change, it raises the question of whether the law was necessary in the first place. In response to public pressure, most, if not all, states have boosted proficiency requirements for students and education qualifications for teachers in recent years. That's a good thing.

No Child Left Behind, however, appears to be one more federal program constructed less for practical than political purposes.