January 7, 2008 10:35AM 

# It’s NCLB’s Birthday, and You Can Cry if You Want To 

By [Andrew J. Coulson](https://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson) 

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Tomorrow is No Child Left Behind’s birthday, but what do you get for the law that’s done nothing? Barely a month ago, two separate sets of international test results were released, allowing us to see how U.S. academic performance has changed since the law was enacted. Across grades and subjects, student achievement has either stagnated or declined – that’s despite the infusion of tens of billions of dollars of new spending in each of the past six years.

The tests were PIRLS (Program on International Reading Literacy Survey) and PISA (Program on International Student Assessment). For the gory details, please see [my summary of the results here](https://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=8850).

What do you get for the sixth birthday of a law that’s done nothing? Repeal.

##### Related Tags 

[Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) 

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