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Life is a mixed bag. Sometimes we're up; sometimes were down. Mostly we succeed; often, we fail.

For example, mostly the economy is humming, but occasionally it's a royal bust. Gasoline prices hovered at $2 per gallon for years, but in recent months their soaring levels above $3 per gallon have taken our collective breath away. Most businesses do meet their annual objectives, yet America's automakers are practically drowning in red ink these days. A majority of Americans once supported the Iraq war, but now most want us out.

Likewise with our schools. Many Albuquerque and New Mexico public schools this year met most federal educational standards. But because they missed one or two of 37 measurement criteria - most of us couldn't name half of them - they failed the only measure that actually counts, "adequate yearly progress."

It's a muddled picture. But when it comes to measuring our schools, teachers and kids, we expect a type of performance perfection: They must be all good, or they all fail.

Why has educational success been defined by the federal No Child Left Behind Act in such stiff, absolute, black-and-white terms for all students and every group of students in all schools? Why not recognize that schools and their students are most realistically depicted using the same, graphed curve that separates the best and the brightest from those who do well from those who just get by and those who fail?

Does that curve more accurately reflect the diversity of our children and their educational capabilities - and thus our schools - than some arbitrary 37-criterion bar set by bureaucrats who, at best, seem more interested in educational theories than classroom realities?

It's as if the federal No Child Left Behind act - which, speaking of "adequate," has never been adequately funded - was actually designed to mandate failure.

State education officials could point to progress in last week's annual report on 154 Albuquerque Public Schools, because 4 percent more showed adequate yearly progress. But the blunt reality is that 61 percent of them did not achieve this benignly distorted description of what actually goes into making that harsh determination.

At the state level, the news was even worse. Last year, 54.1 percent of all New Mexico public schools failed to show adequate yearly progress, while this year about 58 percent missed their mark.

As Tribune reporter Susie Gran reported on Saturday, even schools that have improved deficiencies - such as the West Side's Painted Sky Elementary, which actually moved off the list of schools in need of overall improvement even though its proficiency in math slipped from 57.6 to 50.9 percent of students.

Said Painted Sky Principal Pat Woodard, "It's not OK until we have 100 percent proficient. We owe that to the public." Indeed. Admirable. And probably absolutely unrealistic, on mathematical odds alone.

Certainly the school's motto "All Kids Can Learn," is not only true but worthy. The honest question, however, is: In any given year, with any given group of children, can they all learn to pass the bar set by No Child Left Behind? If not, they all are branded failures, because their school is branded a failure. And that certainly is not true.

Do we really think that even in the good old days "when we were kids," our schools were perfect and that every student who passed through the halls and classrooms came out "proficient?"

And if we measured every institution by the absolute performance of every one of its members - say, President Bush's current approval rating of 27 percent - then the Republican Party would have absolutely no chance in next year's national election.

Whatever No Child Left Behind is intended to measure, it isn't public school success. It needs to be fixed or abandoned.