This article examines the impact of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) on educational experiences and opportunities for African American children. Despite NCLB, public schools have continued to fail African Americans through separate and unequal educational opportunities partially because the focus on educating African American children well has not been legislated or mandated. In focusing on measuring the outcomes of racial inequalities (such as the achievement gap), NCLB avoids addressing fundamental inequalities in schooling and fails to expose the causes of such inequalities. NCLB advocates for teaching to bare minimums rather than meaningfully educating African American students. As African Americans continue to be punished for the failures of their schools, NCLB has continued a separate and unequal educational system while shifting the debate from unequal schools to how to measure such schools.