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Wouldn't it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?

When I talk to teachers, parents, superintendents, my colleagues, everyone wants to fix No Child Left behind. There is great dissatisfaction with No Child Left Behind.

Obviously, this whole 'no child left behind' idea is more rhetoric than actual practice.

Enacted under President George W. Bush's administration with the promise to focus on individual student achievement and overall school performance, No Child Left Behind was heralded as groundbreaking. And in some ways, it was.

The No Child Left Behind Act will be one of President Bush's enduring legacies. And it was engineered and inaugurated with a truly bipartisan coalition in Congress. Accountability, standards, and truly measuring student performance just makes sense. The only real debate about the law was and is whether or not it was adequately funded.

She may hide it, but Clinton is a policy nerd. Ask about microfinance, and she'll talk your ear off. Mention early childhood interventions, and she will gush about obscure details of a home visitation experiment in Elmira, N.Y., that dramatically improved child outcomes.

What we have done with No Child Left Behind is squeeze the creativity out of the classroom because teachers have begun to just teaching to the test.

'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms.

No Child Left Behind widens the gap between the races more than any piece of educational legislation I've seen in 40 years. It denies inner-city kids the critical-thinking skills to interrogate reality.