Critics of the No Child Left Behind Act argue that the centerpiece education reform of the Bush administration is entirely too rigid and punitive — and it is.

The way to correct that excess, however, is not to let the pendulum swing all the way to the other extreme, which is where the current draft of the revised NCLB legislation may be heading.

There is a lot to like about the Democrats' effort, of course. For example, there are hopes of including a funding mechanism to support pre-kindergarten programs, an initiative proposed by Hawai'i's Rep. Mazie Hirono.

But the principal complaint about the existing bill — and one that cries out for amendment — is the law's zero-defects rules that lead to penalizing schools that may have fallen just shy of the performance mark.

To that end, the House Education Committee has modified the way interventions are mandated for "failing" schools, making them more moderate if simply tweaking scores in a few areas would do the trick.

And the "growth model" of educational achievement is a much more realistic measure of progress for many public schools that are contending with poverty, the cultural adjustments of immigrant students and other challenges.

However, it may have gone a bit too far in liberalizing the scoring protocols. Yes, there may be a need to give schools credit in alternative ways, but offsetting failures in key academic subjects by substituting other measures of success won't support our children's ultimate academic success.

In addition, there's pressure from teacher unions to further soften the language that would encourage school districts to use student performance as one criterion for awarding teacher pay bonuses. Naturally, federal law can't trump collective bargaining agreements; the law would merely prompt local authorities to consider that as a prompt for teacher accountability — which is needed.

Congressional leaders must avoid the extremes and craft a law that we — and our children — will find more livable.