Don’t expect the demise of No Child Left Behind to mark the end to punitive measures for Indiana schools. And don’t expect what replaces it to cure all that ails education.

The state’s own accountability law will continue to force tough consequences on Hoosier schools, and the Obama administration’s proposal offers little but the unproven approaches to improving the worst schools.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-3rd, zeroed in on those approaches when the House Education and Labor Committee questioned Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on Wednesday. Souder questioned Duncan about why special education students – and their schools and teachers – are subject to the same standardized tests as other students, even though state and local governments spend millions to develop individual learning plans and goals for each student.

“Why isn’t that the growth model?” he asked. “The (individualized education plan) is the single most expensive thing we do for students, determining where this student is going to be at the end of the year. That’s totally ignored in testing.”

Duncan said he didn’t have an answer, except that the department is working on a solution.

The congressman asked about the narrow approach the proposed law would take in addressing the lowest 5 percent of schools, including plans to fire administrators and replace most of the teachers.

“Why would anyone ever choose to teach in one of these schools if they think there is a 50 percent chance they are going to be fired?” Souder asked. “Why would a principal go there? How are we assured these same schools are going to be measured fairly and get the improvements?”

Duncan told Souder that there are “heroic” teachers and principals who want to go into struggling schools and make a difference, and that he’s seen the results of their work in some schools.

“I agree with that wholeheartedly, and we have schools inside Fort Wayne where teachers actually move to those schools,” Souder said. “But the bottom line is, some of those schools – where they’ve really put their effort in – they get marginal change, even working weekends and so. And those highly motivated teachers didn’t move to those schools thinking 50 percent of them could be fired within a certain number of years.”

The congressman told Duncan that the success stories often could be attributed to factors outside of instruction, including an influx of new students. He also questioned how long those turnaround schools could sustain the improvement.

In an interview after the hearing, Souder said he’s also concerned that the consequences for struggling schools – firing the principal and most of the staff, transforming it to a different model, closing it or converting to a charter school – are too prescriptive. States need more flexibility to find the right approach, he said.

Indiana is one of the states that has embraced the overly prescriptive approaches he questions in the federal plan. It’s the consequences of the state’s Public Law 221, not No Child Left Behind, that have singled out North Side, South Side and Paul Harding high schools, Prince Chapman Academy and Village Elementary.

The Indiana Department of Education sent teams to visit the schools in October, and the school districts and state are developing agreements as to how problems will be addressed.

If the schools don’t improve, state Superintendent Tony Bennett has said he is prepared to take over the schools.

That’s ultimately what the federal government would do under the proposal to revise No Child Left Behind. But Souder is right to question whether that’s the right approach – in Indiana or anywhere.

Different does not necessarily mean better, and there’s no definitive evidence that the narrow approach offered by the state or by Duncan is the right fix for every school. No Child Left Behind might be gone, but its inflexibility continues in the reauthorization proposal and in Indiana education law. A better plan is needed.