President Obama is calling for a fix of the No Child Left Behind law before the moment in 2014 when 100 percent of our public schools would be “failing.” Although well intentioned, the goal of 100 percent proficiency was never going to occur unless the tests became so easy as to be meaningless. The law has had some good effects, including increased focus on underperforming groups, and an effort to create more meaningful assessment tools (as tests are now called). But the ill effects have been damaging: decreased school and teacher morale in nearly every part of the country.

Fear of being labeled a “failing” school when subgroups fall short of the yearly testing target created paranoia in the school where I taught for 16 years — one of the highest achieving schools in Virginia. Each year we would watch a doom-and-gloom PowerPoint presentation showing how narrowly we had averted disaster, and what we would have to do to replicate that feat.