In this paper the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, a top-down, one-size-fits-all coercive nostrum constructed by politicians purportedly to improve all American public schools that piddles with symptoms rather than deal with root causes, is first delineated and analyzed. Its departure from local educational governance to an accountability-focused nationalizing influence with draconian sticks and carrots is cited. Its major awards and sanctions are noted including its Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) criteria as an attempt to denigrate public education in order to privatize it. Next, the main tenets and practices involving constructivism are briefly explored, its major schools of thought mentioned, together with the nature of its resulting individualized educational practices. Last, constructivist thought is held aloft as a prism to critique NCLB and AYP, followed by conclusions and implications for fundamental policy and practice changes that depart significantly from NCLB initiatives to address basic underlying societal dysfunctions cited.