The possibility that the No Child Left Behind Act could trump provisions of collective bargaining agreements with teachers has hung in the air as an open question since before the measure became law in 2002. But it should not anymore, says a report released last week asserting that the teachers' contracts have the winning hand. The debate began as the law was being shaped with the two big national unions working hard to keep the measure from giving district officials the power to undercut bargaining in the name of NCLB compliance. At issue seemed to be the major overhauls the law prescribes for schools that remained "in need of improvement" for at least four years. One of those, for instance, involves disbanding an entire school staff and hiring from scratch--a process that is bound in many districts to run afoul of contract provisions offering job protection on the basis of seniority. The authors, argue in a paper calling for the teachers unions to back down on seniority privileges, pensions, and performance pay, among other issues, that the unions won a "key" victory when it came to bargaining.