What to do about the abominable No Child Left Behind law?

This from Diane Ravitch at Bridging Differences:

Even its defenders understand that the people who must implement the NCLB are hostile to it and know it is unworkable. But it must be reauthorized under some name and in some form.

Ravitch has some good questions regarding what to do about the special features of NCLB, especially those related to accountability, remedies, and sanctions.

• Will the federal government continue to require that all children must reach "proficiency" by 2014?
• Will it continue to mandate that states must test all children from grades 3-8, and once in high school, with tests of their own devising and standards of their own manufacture?
• Will the federal government continue to insist on "adequate yearly progress," will it continue to label schools "failing" (or "schools in need of improvement) if they are not making adequate yearly progress towards 100 percent proficiency?
• Will the federal government continue to mandate choice and tutoring for "failing" schools?
• Will it continue to mandate such sanctions as turning schools over to state control, turning them into charter schools, turning them over to private management, and other kinds of "restructuring"?

People who do not live inside the Beltway cannot imagine how strongly entrenched are the forces that demand reauthorization of NCLB, more or less in its present form. Many of the Beltway think tanks—more so Democrats than Republicans—seem to have a proprietary interest in NCLB and they jeer at anyone who wants to change it.

The Republican think tanks are uneasy with the extent of federal interference and control of education that NCLB has legitimized. The Democratic think tanks think that any complaints about NCLB are the work of lazy, selfish interest groups who just don't want to do the hard work of making 100 percent of our kids "proficient" by 2014...