NCLB doesn't really do anything

There haven't been any real changes in students' performance since No Child Left Behind took effect, the Post says. Well, that's a big surprise. From the article:

Experts and scholars caution against tying the scores directly to the controversial legislation, maintaining that various factors come into play that are beyond the control of the test. "Let's put it this way," said Tom Loveless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, "reading scores were flat and math scores on the rise before No Child Left Behind, and reading scores are flat and math scores are still up after No Child Left Behind. It's impossible to know whether NCLB had an impact -- either positively or negatively."

Look, the argument of critics hasn't really been that NCLB would decrease student performance necessarily, just that it wouldn't be incredibly helpful in that respect, and that compared to other reforms that could be made in education, it was a poor choice. Well, that much seems to have been the case - NCLB doesn't actually help kids learn any more or do any better. The question, then, is: what other effects has NCLB had that can no longer be justified by promises of increased performance? I think the damage to already underfunded school systems is now pretty clearly indefensible, and the other, hidden reasons for NCLB - namely an ideological favoritism towards charter and parochial schools, and a distrust of states to educate their children - are now naked to criticism.