"The federal government sets something called adequate yearly progress so you have to have 95% participation, you have to meet that standard for each racial group, as well as low income, special needs, bilingual students et cetera. "We fell short for two consecutive years with our black and low income students primarily in reading and math," said school superintendent Alan Alson. For fans of No Child Left Behind this is one of the law's great achievements. By demanding compliance from each subgroup of students, even good schools are forced to confront failures and are held to account for all their children. Dr Alson, who has long worked to try to close the achievement gap between minority and majority students, supports the concept. But the school has struggled to implement the sanctions which No Child Left Behind imposes on failing schools. "You have to offer your students choice to go to another district that has met the standard of adequate yearly progress. "We have three districts that surround us. Two of the three did not make adequate yearly progress and the third has chosen not to accept our students and therefore we are not able to offer choice to our students," Dr Alson said.

'Fragile democracy': Experiences like this have raised questions about the practicality of implementing No Child Left Behind. But Dr Alson worries that the scheme also has inherent educational flaws, which Mr Kerry's promised extra dollars will not change. "What money won't do is address any of the key educational points around student progress and the kind of learning we desire for our students," he said. "We have a democracy but it's a fragile democracy. An irony of the law is that it forces us to do things that are so narrowly focused they don't in fact help young people become the kind of citizens they need to be." As election day approaches and the candidates wrangle over the nation's education, that is a warning America's 93,000 public schools will surely hope they heed.