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An editorial in favor of NCLB?

Now here’s something you don’t see every day:

Much of the pushback against No Child Left Behind comes from teachers and school administrators. Some object to the accountability it has imposed. Before it, there was little accountability in public education – astoundingly little, given the billions of dollars involved and the importance of the enterprise to our collective future.

And No Child Left Behind is, undeniably, imperfect in design and execution. The biggest flaw is the mishmash measure that is the centerpiece of its accountability scheme, the one that gauges whether students, schools and school districts are making Adequate Yearly Progress, or AYP.

But many of the criticisms levied against No Child Left Behind are unfair and untrue. It is not massive federal intrusion. States devise their own standards, craft their own curriculum, set their own goals, write their own tests and concoct their own definitions of progress.

Not something you read every day…