Because really, I think it seems more and more like every child has been left behind as we keep letting this ineffective measure remain in place.

This morning as I was riding the train to work I was expecting the financial markets to still be all over the headlines of my paper and sure enough they were but hidden away at the bottom right of the front page there was something else that caught my attention. There was a piece titled Under ‘No Child’ Law, Even Solid Schools Falter. Now having been a public school teacher, education still holds a special place in my heart (I just don’t have the patience to be able to deal with public school administration to continue in the system).

So the title of this act is just phenomenal propaganda but it doesn’t actually address any of this issues plaguing our public schools such as the budgets continually being cut. (Unless of course you are fortunate and live in a wealthy neighborhood where parents will rally and raise money for the local schools themselves out of their own pockets). But really the only thing this act has done is require more testing in the schools. Personally I don’t think that standardized tests are always a great measure of what people know. I happen to test well and yes they do reflect that on some level I am smart but I have friends who are just as smart as I am and who generally perform better in class than I do who test horribly. In fact when these standardized tests are so heavily weighted because of funding there is a lot of pressure to teach to the test from the administration (and no I’m not making this up, I actually worked in a school and was told to teach to the test). When you teach to the test you miss a lot of material that is just as important but because it’s not on the test teachers will just skip it. Especially new teachers who are being pressured. I mean these could be very innovative inspirational teachers yet they are being given instructions to expect the worst from their students and often times given nearly impossible goals. Not to mention students lose from these measures too. It is much more important to instill some joy in learning, what joy is there when you are constantly under pressure to pass a test. These days they even have exams in grade school, which I know did not exist when I was growing up (thankfully). I think it is absolutely ludicrous to think that some exam will miraculously mean that suddenly American public schools will perform better. Also how on earth do you call it no child left behind when every single state has a different standard. You cannot make unreasonable federal regulations when you choose not to help out the states. That is irresponsible and unjust. I dearly hope that whoever wins this next election will reconsider the state of the nations educational systems and try to create a system that may be a little less dysfunctional instead of continuing to make demands of the school system without giving them any support.

On a bright note I am supremely proud of Chicago for approving a gay friendly school for teens that are at risk of dropping out due to harassment.