[gerrys0]

Yes, teaching to a test should be easy, and it is easy to your median 15-year-old. The gigantic problem with NCLB - and something I've not seen mentioned in this HN story - is that NCLB is a one-size-fits-all mandate, and there is NOTHING about education in the US or anywhere that is one-size-fits-all. Hundreds of factors influence the raw material (children) that teachers have to work with every day.

Countries like Finland do not try to graduate all of their children in the same way. 43% of Finland's HS graduates graduate from vocational schools (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Why-Are-Finlands...). The US has slowly moved further and further away from this type of "tracking" since the 70's. Things like NCLB and the over-valued notion of a college degree has only accelerated this problem. I am not optimistic.