An irony of the federal education reform called No Child Left Behind is that teaching time will be lost while educators comply with new paperwork rules, Lawrence Supt. Randy Weseman said Thursday.

“They say you don’t fatten the sheep by weighing it,” he told U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., during a listening tour on President Bush’s school reform initiative. “To comply … a great deal of instructional time is used to document that learning has occurred rather than to engage students in learning.”

Moore got an earful during a 90-minute discussion at school district headquarters. About 45 people attended, and he heard from area school board members, teachers and parents.

Moore said he came away convinced Bush’s signature education act, which Moore voted for, should be amended.

Generally, speakers endorsed the law’s goal of greater accountability. But, they said, they don’t like the program’s details and costs.

“At some point,” said Adela Solis, an elementary teacher at Lawrence’s East Heights School, “a conversation needs to be had with people who know what they’re doing with children.”

Alexa Pochowski, assistant commissioner of the Kansas Department of Education, questioned the law’s requirement that all students test at the “proficient” level or above in math and reading by 2014.

“That’s just not possible when we think about what needs to be done,” she said.

Under the law, schools that fail to demonstrate greater student achievement — annual testing of students in grades three through eight begins in 2005 — must offer students supplemental tutoring and the chance to transfer to a school nearby. After six years, struggling schools could be shut down and reopened with new staffs.

Weseman said schools not meeting annual benchmarks would be placed “on improvement” status. It’s inevitable some Lawrence schools would make that list, he said, and that would harm public confidence in a district that has maintained high standards for many years.

Pochowski said as many as 800 of the state’s 1,600 schools could be “on improvement” for failing to meet federal targets.

Moore said one of his concerns was that Bush’s budget proposal provided $22.6 billion for public schools under No Child Left Behind, which would be $9.1 billion less than originally promised.

“It’s another unfunded federal mandate,” Moore said.