The No Child Left Behind law should be greatly reexamined and modified because the focus on standardized tests diminishes the quality of other subjects not on the tests, tests are not an efficient tool to ensure that a student receives an excellent education and that testing creates unnecessary stress for students, teachers, and administrators. The purpose of No Child Left Behind is to provide every student with the opportunity to receive a world-class education. This is a great proposal to aim for, but the legislation plans to accomplish this proposal by making schools accountable for the performance of their students and measuring their performance with the use of standardized tests. After students take standardized tests, the school district must report their scores, and if the scores do not meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), they are punished, usually with a deduction in federal funding. Therefore, an excellent education is critical to a child's success, but standardized tests are not the best way to ensure that students receive a good education because they divert attention from other subjects and cause additional stress on students and others people involved, and it is not the most effective way to ensure that students receive a high-quality education. The No Child Left Behind Act should be reviewed and modified because the focus on standardized testing diminishes the educational quality of other subjects not included in the test. Decreased funding in subjects such as art and music will obviously affect the quality of education a teacher will be able to provide to their students. Patricia Velde Pederson, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Education at ...... middle of paper ...... Scott Franklin. No child left behind and public school. Ann Arbor, MI, USA: University of Michigan Press, 2007. Web.Beveridge, Tina. “No Child Left Behind and Fine Arts Lessons.” Arts Education Policy Review 111.1 (2010): 4-7. Web.Duffy, Maureen, et al. “No Child Left Behind: Values ​​and Research Issues in High-Stakes Assessments.” Counseling and Values ​​53.1 (2008): 53-66. Web.Pederson, Patricia Velde. “What Gets Measured Is Valuable: The Impact of the No Child Left Behind Act on Unmeasured Topics.” Clearinghouse 80.6 (2007): 287-91. Web.Rushton, Stephen and Anne Juola-Rushton. “Classroom Learning Environment, Brain Research, and the No Child Left Behind Initiative: 6 Years Later.” Journal of Early Childhood Education 36.1 (2008): 87-92. Web.Smyth, Theoni Soublis. “Who doesn’t get left behind by a left-behind child?” Clearinghouse 81.3 (2008): 133-7. Net.