By now, most parents with children in local school districts who care how their schools are performing are aware of the flaws in the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

While its intentions were good, NCLB’s requirement that schools meet progressively higher goals on standardized testing until all classes and subgroups achieve 100 percent of the national standards by 2014 is unrealistic.

A school is listed as failing under NCLB standards, for example, if a subset of English-as-second-language students, or students with learning disabilities, doesn’t meet the standards.