For starters, how about we repeal that idiotic, asinine "No child left behind" act, that does absolutely nothing of the sort. The only reason this passed is because of the name. Everyone thought, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea!".
Know what this thing really did? It penalizes those schools with the lowest test scores. If your students can't make the grades, it means you lose some of your funding.
My ex girlfriend teaches at a school that serves the lowest income demographic in my area. She had recently graduated from college and this was the only teaching job she could get anything remotely in the local area, and she still had to beat lots of other applicants. Kids come into the school not knowing how to read basic words or do any arithmetic from families with parents that are spending more time selling drugs in the evenings then they are with their kids. The school, surprisingly enough, was already one of the lowest funded schools in the area, and had some of the lowest scores in the area before it passed.
When "No child left behind" passed, know what it did? It cut the schools funding even further, when they already didn't have enough money for books and other things. The school is so overcrowded that several classrooms are actually "temporary" buildings that have been present for years. The principal started yelling more at teachers about bringing test scores up and having less money to do it with, upsetting the faculty. They didn't have enough money for school supplies. My ex started having to buy (some) of her own paper to use for class projects and other things because funding was so short. Some of the few decent teachers the school had left decided on early retirement or other career changes because they became so fed up with it.
The net result, of course, is that the students scores have not improved, they are losing good faculty left and right because everyone is tired of the crap, and their funding isn't getting any better because neither are the scores. Nice, big, circular cluster-****. Last I had heard, morale was at an all time low and things aren't getting any better.
"No child left behind". Right. As one semi-famous teacher would put it, "Crack is bad, mmmmm'k?"