Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The largest U.S. teachers union is among a group endorsing a plan in Congress that would expand the federal No Child Left Behind law by offering states a single national standard for teaching math and science.

The proposal by Senator Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, a Democrat who will lead the Senate Banking Committee, and Representative Vernon Ehlers, a Republican of Michigan, would set the curriculum standard on the federal level and give states financial incentives to adopt it, Dodd said in a statement.

Dodd and Ehlers plan to outline their idea tomorrow with the backing of groups that include the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, a critic of the No Child Left Behind law that as recently as November had joined the Bush administration in rejecting ideas for a single test standard.

The proposal will ``ensure that all American students are given the same opportunity to learn to a high standard no matter where they reside,'' Dodd and Ehlers said in a written summary of their initiative.

The No Child Left Behind law, signed by President George W. Bush in 2002, requires schools that fail to meet math and reading testing standards for two consecutive years to let students transfer to a different school in the district, then pay for tutoring in the third year. Low-performing schools eventually can face the removal of teachers and administrators.

Setting Standards

The law lets states write their own curriculum and tests, and decide their own standards for success. Bush has remained opposed to creating federal standards, even as business and educational leaders warn that low state standards are threatening U.S. economic competitiveness.

A University of California study last year found states reporting about 68 percent of their fourth-graders proficient in reading, while the federally funded National Assessment of Educational Progress, a non-binding sample test, put the figure at 31 percent. In math, the states found 65 percent proficient while NAEP found 30 percent.

The Dodd-Ehlers plan, and its support from more than two dozen other educational and business groups, is a breakthrough for ending poor state standards, said Michael Dannenberg, director of education policy at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based research group that is among its endorsers.

`Inexorable March'

``The country is on an inexorable march toward national education standards,'' Dannenberg said. ``The question is not if, but when and how.''

U.S. lawmakers have resisted, however, fearing national standards threaten local control of schools, said Ehlers, who last year served as chairman of the House Science Committee's subcommittee on environment, technology and standards.

Bush has held to that position. Creating a federal test and prodding states how to teach to it ``would be the worst thing that could happen to the public school system,'' he said last year at a Maryland elementary school.

The NEA also had opposed creating a single national test standard, saying it first wanted higher levels of education funding. ``It's premature, and I don't think it would do what people think that it would do,'' NEA President Reg Weaver said in an interview in November.

Yet the NEA's executive committee studied the matter ``in depth'' last month and agreed to endorse national standards as long as they're voluntary, union lobbyist Kim Anderson said. The Dodd-Ehlers plan also includes teachers in drafting the standards, Anderson said.

``It's an attempt to address the disparity across the states in their content standards,'' she said.

$400 Million

The bill would provide $3 million for the National Assessment Governing Board, which produces the NAEP test, to draft the math and science testing standards, and another $400 million in incentives for states to adopt them, said MaryEllen McGuire, a legislative aide to Dodd, who has said he is considering running for president.

The Dodd-Ehlers statement said their plan ``does not establish national standards,'' even though it tasks the National Assessment Governing Board with ``creating'' them, since participation is voluntary.

States already can abstain from compliance with the current No Child Left Behind law if they want to forego their share of more than $20 billion in federal education aid, though in practice none have.

Groups listed as endorsers on the Dodd-Ehlers proposal include the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the National Science Teachers Association and the American Chemical Society, which represents executives of such companies as GlaxoSmithKline Plc, 3M Co. and Procter & Gamble Co.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Basken in Washington at pbasken@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: January 7, 2007 15:28 EST