The American Youth Policy Forum event -- one of three in a series -- focused on the research justification for integrating community service and civic education with academic goals. The evidence is there; these initiatives do enhance academic learning. But speaking in the August hearing room of the U.S. House of Representatives, most of the researchers felt compelled to use the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act as the framework for their findings. They rolled up their message and stuffed it into the NCLB bag, where, in addition to getting wrinkled, it could easily be ignored. To their credit, the panelists and the entire forum attempted to provide more balance to a public school system that is now hell-bent on chasing higher scores on standardized tests. Certainly, the core goals of NCLB are essential and not in dispute. It is how the law expects school people to achieve them that makes NCLB its own worst enemy. Many worry about NCLB's potential to push out of consideration such subjects as the arts, career education, and social studies -- indeed, any subjects in which students aren't required to pass a test. These engagement and motivation studies, however, look at the whole school enterprise and conclude that the climate for learning is every bit as important as the content. NCLB proponents are right in arguing that the goals of the law are not in conflict with the other purposes of schooling. However, they ignore the reality that test-based accountability, as interpreted by educators today, can not help but encourage competition rather than collaboration, ca not help but narrow learning experiences for students rather than deepen them, and can not help but foster superficial learning that could ultimately alienate students further from their schools.