It is crucial for students to believe that their home and community languages and cultures are acknowledged and valued (Faltis and Hudelson 1998). Furthermore, it is of equal importance that system-created contradictions between institutional literacy (school-based) and family-based literacy be blurred or eliminated (McCaleb 1997). It is this author's contention that the No Child Left Behind Act is detrimental to English language learners and other ethnically diverse children because it seeks to maintain current present approaches to curriculum and assessment, thereby perpetuating pedagogies that stifle minority cultures and affirm the dominant culture's values, interests, and concerns.