Abstract
As the NCLB legislation trickles down to local school districts, its impact is likely to fundamentally alter the relationship between the federal government, the states, and America’s 14,500 public school districts. This shift in the balance of power of education, from states and local school districts to big government, is the most significant in a generation. Looming behind the veneer and rhetoric of the Bush education plan is a set of destructive actions that are designed to destroy public education by enabling a huge exodus into risky experimental alternatives.2 “No Child Left Behind” is much more than a label devised by clever promoters.