It has been ten years since President George W. Bush signed the law "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB). The revision of one decade of evidences demonstrates NCLB failures both in its objectives and in a broader way. In fact, its misguided dependence on standardized tests and sanctions applied to schools have been harming the efforts towards the educational reform. Many schools, particularly the ones attended by low income students, became a little bit more than a test preparation program. It is about time to recognize this failure and to adopt a more effective course for de federal government's role in education. The policies developers should abandon strategies based on the faith in testing and punishing. The data accumulated in the last ten years point out that: 1) NCLB severally affected the quality of teaching and its equality. 2) NCLB was not able to significantly increase the average academic performance or to significantly narrow the performance gaps.
NCLB; Public policies; Equality; Teaching quality; Standardized tests
