Is anyone else bothered by misuse of the term "No Child Left Behind"?

I saw a TikTok recently where a teacher said that, if she were Secretary of Education, her first act would be to "abolish the No Child Left Behind Act". She said, "if children fail a class, they will have to repeat it." This is like the 7th time I've heard "No Child Left Behind" used to mean lenient grading policies, and I'm starting to wonder if people actually understand what it was. Let's leave aside the fact that the Secretary of Education has no power to change congressional law. Are we not aware that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 was a school accountability law? That it established standardized testing and teacher qualification requirements, imposed harsh consequences for schools that failed to make "adequate yearly progress" on their test scores, and required states to issue "school report cards" visible to the public? That it has nothing, nothing to do with whether you are allowed to make a student repeat a grade? And are we not aware that this law was superseded in 2015 by the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), so NCLB is not really still "the law" (even if some of the systems it created live on)? I thought most teachers knew what this was or at least had colleagues who remembered it. There were some pretty nightmarish school closures, mass layoffs, teaching to the test around that era. There was also widespread cheating by staff trying to increase test scores, since test scores could determine the school's future. Was I wrong to assume everyone knew this? Does this bother anyone else, or am I just too policy-brained? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.... Edit: A lot of people are saying that NCLB and ESSA caused schools to "socially promote" students to pad their graduation rates. While NCLB did require schools to publish graduation rates, and some districts did loosen policies on social promotion during that time, many did not. Moreover, the causes of social promotion are complex and also include financial incentives for districts (it's expensive to hold kids back) as well as parent-pleasing. GPA growth actually slowed in the 2000s too. submitted by /u/ProvocaTeach [link] [comments]