In 2001, President Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act, a bipartisan effort to mandate national education standards and increase federal funding of education. At the time, critics on both sides of the political spectrum were troubled by the expansion of federal power over education that the act represented and by the education standards the act mandated. Now, nearly half a decade later, has No Child Left Behind been a success? If not, how should it be reformed? Peter Robinson speaks with John E. Chubb and Martin Carnoy.

Will standards-based testing and accountability improve our nation's education system? In January 2002, President Bush signed into law the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 2002. The act calls for a mandatory annual test in reading and math for every child in the nation in the third through eighth grades. Schools that fail to improve their students' scores may be held accountable, possibly losing some federal funding. Supporters of the act say that standards-based testing and accountability are the best ways to monitor and improve the nation's schools. Opponents say that such a regime is largely a political ploy that will do more harm than good. Who's right?

Delivering his first State of the Union address to a Democratic-controlled Congress, President Bush hopes to balance a rebuke of his Iraq policy already promised by lawmakers with a high-profile invitation to cooperate on vexing domestic problems...