As Congress considers reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 a fundamental question in the debate is whether to continue to increase federal government management authority over education or to restore citizen ownership of America's schools. Testing requirements in NCLB are having unintended consequences: by requiring states to test students annually and make annual progress toward a national goal of all students scoring proficient by 2014, the law has created a strong incentive for states to lower standards so that more students will pass. Researchers have termed this problem a "race to the bottom," which threatens to eliminate academic transparency about student performance, denying parents, citizens, and policymakers needed information on school performance. The authors advocate that Congress can address this problem by ending NCLB testing policies and allowing states to opt out of NCLB requirements. Parents, citizens, and policymakers would continue to receive the information about student and school performance through state testing. Restoring citizen ownership of American education is advocated as necessary for future efforts to strengthen American public schools. (Contains 16 footnotes and 3 charts.) [This document was produced by the Domestic Policy Studies Department, The Heritage Foundation.]