State education leaders say proposed legislation that would force local school systems to continue funding a federal tutoring program could derail their efforts to gain relief from the mandates of the No Child Left Behind Act. Lawmakers are debating two bills introduced in the House of Delegates and the Senate dealing with Supplemental Educational Services, a federally mandated program that provides thousands of the state’s poorest and lowest-performing students with free tutoring services by nonprofit and private vendors.

The program came under fire recently after an Abell Foundation report that found the companies operated with little scrutiny and accountability and used questionable practices in recruiting parents to sign up their children. The companies set their rates and are paid based on how many children are enrolled in their programs. A Baltimore Sun article last year noted that in one instance, a provider offered a laptop to a city parent if she signed up her five students.

With the support of every district in the state, the Maryland State Department of Education is seeking to make the program optional for local school districts in its NCLB waiver application to the U.S. Department of Education. But the state’s efforts are running up against aggressive lobbying from the tutoring companies that began at the state agency and has since moved to Annapolis. The federal government is offering waivers from some of the requirements of No Child Left Behind, which has labeled many schools as failing.

Education leaders around the state denounced the legislation in Annapolis, saying the tutoring services have yet to prove to have any effect on student achievement, despite tying up tens of millions of dollars in federal funds in the last decade. “Those bills are terrible,” said Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso. “SES has no accountability. Some providers are great, and those we partner with in other ways. Many are not and get to sign up parents with impunity. It ties up huge amounts of money that the schools have no say over.”