NCLB deals with very few kids who "want to fail." It mostly deals with kids with learning/communication disabilities. Those kids don't have the choice of just "moving from the fail to the succeed pool"; they have to be given the opportunity to succeed you're talking about by giving them increased assistance. Which takes budget and teacher-time away from other students, which decreases class performance.

If you really want to fix education, don't repeal NCLB; amend it to state that special-needs kids get education vouchers with for going to a school specifically enabled to help them, with at least one state-funded school so enabled in each state; and then drop the requirement that any other school handle them in normal classes.

This would be better for the student, for the teacher, and for all the other students. The only people it would negatively affect are the parents, who would be forced to either homeschool, or move the family to a place where schooling for their child is available.

This isn't true at at all. I worked at the NYCDOE for 3 years planning, implementing, and executing NCLB. NCLB deals with passing tax dollars to private companies - plain and simple. Superintendents/Schools/Teachers no longer create their own curriculum - it's all purchased and has to be to meet the regulatory requirements of NCLB (amongst other regulations which benefit corporations).

To clarify - I think corporations should profit as much as possible. I do have an issue with companies profiting from making shit products that comply with regulations and acting like they are making a positive contribution to society.

> The American dream used to be about letting those who work hard succeed, and letting those who didn't fail.

I've never heard the latter. When was this true? According to one history I read, one of the appeals of the New Deal programs in the 1930s is that we would be better than the Old World (i.e., Europe) and not leave our own citizens in the gutter.