Schools need to be accountable from the bottom up, not top down from the federal government.
The ill-intentioned and poorly written No Child Left Behind Act was bound to do precisely the opposite: leave many children behind.
Poorly-run school districts suffer from a lack of competition, the only sure way to generate real reform.
Yet a voucher system notwithstanding, in Finland, no child is left behind, and the educational staff in that country accomplish this inspiring phenomenon without any pretentious legislation.
The public schools in Finland do not rely on standardized testing to gauge the effectiveness of their instruction. Instead, they encourage teacher collaboration, experimentation, and evaluation of different teaching methods. Instead of state and federal curriculum standards, which tie teachers hands and put pressure on site administrators, Finland permits innovation and individualized instruction.
Simple reforms that do not break the bank of the state: why haven't we though of that?