IN HIS helpfully explicit new book, Permission to Forget: And Nine Other Root Causes of America's Frustration with Education, Lee Jenkins recommends that we two barriers for every one new initiative; remove two education laws for every one new Jenkins -- a former superintendent, principal, teacher, and university faculty member -- also notes that it is leaders who have the power to remove these barriers, even though they might not know what the barriers are. To improve their knowledge, Jenkins suggests that these leaders ask the people below them in the organization to point out problems. Teachers should ask their pupils; principals, their teachers; superintendents, their principals; and governors, their state's superintendents. Legislators often try to identify barriers through committee hearings in which they seek the advice of those closest to a problem. For example, they might ask several superintendents to come before the committee to talk about barriers related to dealing with high school truancy. Or they might hear from district business officials about the challenges of basing budgets on estimates or preparing budgets that do not coincide with revenue collection. Or district business officials might speak to the problems that emerge when a state regularly fails to pass its budget on time, which just adds to the confusion. Of course, even if legislatures were to take two laws off the books for every law enacted, they would actually be removing provisions, not entire bills. After all, a single bill might affect anywhere from one to a hundred provisions of law. For example, if a state required public reporting in two additional areas -- say, graduation and attendance rates -- it might drop requirements for reporting the average teacher's experience or for reporting the number of student tardies or the number of volunteer hours spent in the school. States such as Michigan, Texas, Florida, and California have even taken on the challenging work of reexamining the entire state education code - - repealing and realigning significant portions of law. Although such activities might not be apparent to the average parent or schoolteacher, they can have a substantial impact on students over the long run by influencing finances, teacher qualifications, or even who has the final say in a student's education. Each year, the Education Commission of the States (ECS) tracks the enactment of education provisions. The activity level in states varies by year, as does the number of gubernatorial vetoes, and the number of bills enacted is always much smaller than the number of provisions. This year, ECS staff captured nearly 3,000 provisions of education law affected by the passage of legislation. The most active states in 2004 were Arkansas, California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, and Virginia, each of which enacted over 100 meaningful provisions. Substantial activity also took place in Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi, and Tennessee. The most veto activity in 2004 occurred in California. But any time a legislature feels strongly enough, it can override a veto. And, of course, a governor can always let a policy become law without his or her signature. Top Tier of Activity The top tier of activity in 2004 related to teacher quality, accountability, assessment, health and nutrition, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), school safety, high school improvement, special education, early childhood education, and, of course, finance. Twenty-nine states amended or enacted new policies related to teacher certification. Fifteen addressed compensation in some way, 17 worked to improve professional development, and 15 worked on recruitment and retention of teachers. Many of the accountability amendments (roughly 100) were also related to NCLB, although the overall numbers of provisions related to NCLB and accountability were smaller this year than last. …