The National Challenge, whereby all secondary schools had to attain 5 A*--Cs by 2011, was launched in June 2008. In this article, Richard Riddell outlines the main provisions of the National Challenge, which he characterizes as shallow, mechanistic and playing an old "performativity" tune. Although the new benchmark will be achieved by many more schools, this will often be at the expense of the more fundamental, longer term changes necessary for social justice, particularly in urban or socially disadvantaged communities. And schools not likely to achieve the benchmark will be forced to take on a new organizational form which, unless the schools' intakes are changed, will still have to address the same issues. (Contains 4 notes.)