Chapter 15: End It, Don’t Mend It: What to Do With No Child Left Behind

The authors of the Cato Institute’s policy analysis End It, Don’t Mend It: What to Do With No Child Left Behind¹ lead with the radical conclusion that Washington should fully abdicate its role in the perennial struggle to improve the nation’s schools. Instead, full authority should be held by the states and tax dollars should go back to parents (or at least to those parents who earn enough to benefit from tuition tax credits).

This conclusion proceeds via a dramatic inferential leap from a more tightly reasoned examination of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). In all, the Cato authors do the following: (1) usefully review evidence on whether students are doing better under NCLB; (2) examine what the authors believe are self-serving political interests that led to NCLB’s initial enactment and continue to shape the widening debate on Capitol Hill over reauthorization; (3) review the Congress’ constitutionally bounded role in education; and (4) conclude that after scrapping the federal government’s role, the nation should organize school finance solely through tax credits or vouchers, shifting to a market system.