The good news is that 6th District Rep. Sam Graves is armed with a three-step plan to fix the beleaguered federal No Child Left Behind Act.

The Northwest Missouri Republican brought the plan to a meeting with about 15 local school district administrators at the St. Joseph School District’s Troester Media Center. The topic was timely. The act is officially up for re-authorization starting in January.

Mr. Graves knows what he would do to improve the increasingly controversial engine designed to drive up standards for American public schools.

First, special education students’ performance should be based on their individual education plans (IEPs) rather than grade-level tests, according to Mr. Graves. Many local districts face losing important federal bucks because their special education students haven’t met test goals.

The congressman also supports tracking individual students’ progress from year to year instead of comparing this year’s sixth grade to last year’s sixth grade, for example.

Finally, Mr. Graves thinks school districts that miss a test goal in one category, such as special education students’ scores, should face less harsh punishments than districts that miss the mark in many categories.

Now here is the bad news: The veteran lawmaker gives re-authorization virtually no chances of success until after the 2008 presidential election.

“In election years, nothing passes. I’m not saying that it won’t pass. But they can’t even get a farm bill passed,” our congressman told the gathering of school officials.

It is sad that Congress understands that No Child Left Behind is broken and a reasonable fix is available but that politics get in the way of that solution. It is sad, but not surprising.