We all hear about it every year. Ever since George Bush passed this law, there has been a constant, constant demand for children to get higher scores on standardized tests. They say children need to get the best grades on tests possible. But, is it really a worthwhile law?

The basic principle of NCLB is that they want every child in America to get the same scores on standardized tests by 2014, which is only three years away. My first estimate of this law is....

It's unrealistic. Every child is different in aspects of intelligence, and they each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Making them all get the same scores is impossible. Each year, the results come out the same: the government claims children aren't learning enough and that test scores need to go up.

The problem isn't that children aren't learning enough. Rather, children can only learn at their own limit. Another thing is that the tests often contain questions that they know normal children just can't answer, unless they have a genius intellect.

What's even more sickening is the lengths that the government goes to just to drill this stuff into student's heads. Over and over, they take the tests, usually not scoring higher than they did last year, and are lectured again and again about not doing good enough. This kind of talk is perfectionist and wears away at students self-esteem.

Also, teachers are forced to insert all assignments to somehow be related to this material. Teachers have to put aside their own lesson plans all in favor of a government program. It's gotten so bad that some schools are even offering bribes, like video games, just to get kids to score better on tests.

Education used to be about teachers learning how every student worked, and trying to get them to try their hardest, so they could be proud of themselves for doing their best. However, now it is just a decaying mass of corruption and unoriginality, where individuals' ideas are shoved aside for a government's idea.

When did a test become necessary for a kid to graduate? Do we really want to become like Japan and China, where rigorous testing is so bad kids constantly commit suicide due to all the pressure? Do we really want to ruin children's aspect of school as a fun place to be and learn and instead make it be something they dread, every morning? 

Remember, a student's experience of life also determines what kind of worker they'll be when they get older. Do we want workers who are never satisifed with what they do because it's not good enough?