Under provisions of the No Child Left Behind law, if a school is declared a "failure" (in official language it "needs improvement"), parents can request that their children be transferred to a school not on the list. But what if there aren’t any "non-failing" schools available? That’s the dilemma faced by Chicago and other big city school systems and a good example of how a one-size-fits-all law like NCLB doesn’t work.

Even in the overly large, mostly suburban school district I work for, transferring from a needs-improvement school is going to be difficult. Parents who request a transfer may find their kids on a long bus ride to find an opening in another school. In addition, those nearby schools not on the needs improvement list will become overcrowded quickly (most are close anyway) and students will find themselves going to classes in "learning cottages" (our superintendent’s euphemism for trailers), which itself is a major complaint of parents around here.

Another problem overlooked by the authors of NCLB is that these "receiving" schools may not have the resources to cope with an influx of students with special needs, especially since the law has been drastically underfunded by W and his pet Congress. The result could be that a school previously not on the "needs improvement" list, will find itself there the next year. In any case, the district will be spending money in the process that could be better spent on improving the original school.

Finally, comes the question of whether the transferring students will really do better in the new school. Many will, for a variety of reasons (the "novelty effect", one of the few things I remember from my ed psych class, comes to mind). But for some children, just moving won’t address their real educational problems. Which brings us to the real catch-22 of NCLB. The law is too tied up with testing and penalties to address the problems of these students and all the testing and penalties becomes an impediment to any real progress in that direction.