PHOENIX — The state House voted Wednesday to yank Arizona schools from federal No Child Left Behind regulations — but only if it doesn’t cost too much.

On a voice vote, lawmakers gave preliminary approval to the measure which says the state will withdraw from the controversial Bush administration program after the 2009-2010 school year. That move follows complaints about No Child Left Behind from state lawmakers who object to what they see as federal meddling in a state issue to educators who question the validity of the program.

But HB 2392, crafted by Rep. David Schapira, D-Tempe, would not be automatic.

It first requires the state Department of Education to figure out how much money Arizona schools would lose in federal aid by withdrawing from the program. Schapira figures that exceeds $600 million a year.

That study also would compute the savings to the state from no longer having to comply with the various federal regulations and reporting and testing requirements, a figure Schapira estimates “could be in the hundreds of millions.” Withdrawal from NCLB would come only when legislators come up with the money to fund the difference.

The 2001 law was designed to ensure that all students are making year-to-year progress. That is shown through test scores.

Schools whose scores don’t measure up have to come up with improvement plans. In the more severe cases, they actually have to change staff or curriculum — or potentially have to get rid of the entire faculty.

“It could have been great,” Schapira said, “if they had stayed out of the classroom — I don’t think the government should be involved in curriculum issues — and if they had funded it.” He said that $600 million is not really “new” money but simply a different way of handing out the federal dollars Arizona schools were getting before.

State School Superintendent Tom Horne is particularly critical of how the federal government measures progress. He said there are 253 ways for a school to be listed as failing — and that falling short on even one of those 253 categories means a school is not performing.

And Horne said there are other flaws, including factoring in the test scores of students who come to school not knowing English.

“I’m a strong advocate of accountability,” he said. But Horne said NCLB is “totally dysfunctional,” saying it smacks of the kind of a system that would have been put together by bureaucrats in the old Soviet Union.

What has killed prior efforts to withdraw from the program is the threatened loss of federal education dollars, most of which go to the schools that have the most students in poverty and the greatest need. And Schapira acknowledged the state, with its current $1.2 billion deficit and anticipated $1.9 billion in red ink next year, is in no position now to get out.

Schapira said, though, Arizona’s finances should have recovered enough by the 2010-2011 school year so there will be enough extra cash for the state to get out of the program.