Empty Policies

As a direct result of the failure to execute the policy of Bush’s landmark No Child Left Behind in its entirety, and the overwhelming dislike for a centralized education system, this policy has become a feel good slogan which is vacant of any viable plan to ensure that no child is truly left behind. The overwhelming majority of children left behind are low income and/or minority students living in California, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania and New York. It is peculiar; to say the least, that the two remaining Democratic contenders represent two of these failing school districts, Illinois and New York. Also, these 5 states may well determine who will be the Democratic nominee to face John McCain in the general election. This fact should serve as a wake up call to remind those remaining believers that a slogan without any funding, and little or no consequences for our failing schools is doomed from the very beginning. We seem to have abandoned the ideals of the American Creed by neglecting to invest in our schools and thus ignoring our greatest asset by giving the present administration a free pass to administer a policy without any teeth and vacant of any realistic planning to combat our failing schools. This administration seems to be at their best when declaring war against failing schools in the same way that they neglected to give our military women and men the armor protection that they needed earlier in the Iraq war. The No Child Left Behind Act was intended to increase government involvement in the management of schools, increase funding for schools which serve low income students and set a deadline by 2014 which says that all students must be performing at grade-level and proficient in reading and math and in each category they have failed miserably.