One reason I left education (besides the massive amount of hours each week) was having nearly zero control over what I taught. As an English teacher, I'm not a big believer in forcing kids to read Huck Finn and dusty books they hate. Sorry, maybe that's an unpopular opinion, but good books have been written in the last 50 years, even the last 10 years--and why not teach something engaging and help kids who don't love reading (at least half) to not HATE reading?! Rant over--I agree, standardized testing is a nightmare for both teachers and kids. NCLB had a lot of crappy unintended or possibly intended consequences.