Schools that allow special-needs students to use aids such as calculators on standardized tests are being labeled as failing under No Child Left Behind, even though the special provisions are mandated under a separate federal law, according to a recent Arizona Daily Star report. NCLB, the article says, won't even allow a student born without hands to use a scribe to take standardized state tests that determine state funding eligibility. This conflict leaves schools in a no-win situation. In choosing what is best for individual students, teachers could be contributing to lower test scores and the loss of federal funding. That is a choice a teacher should never have to make.

Cleaning up NCLB to align with the Federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) could be the start of consistent national standards. Once educators and politicians start fixing the problems in NCLB, it will become painfully obvious just how unfair it is to have a federal mandate and 50 completely different state standards on how to meet that mandate. While local control of schools is probably a good thing, federal mandates reliant on local standards is just not logical, practical, or fair.