Bush's Alamo: Public Schools

Dan Brown writes about the impact of NCLB on his 4th grade classroom in the Bronx. His slice of life ran in the Huffington Post.

"P.S. 85, like most public schools in poor neighborhoods, is desperately short on quality teachers and classes beyond the bare bones; art and music are nonexistent for most classes and a rare period of physical education runs like a farce..."

"...Eddie is going through his fourth year in fourth grade because of rampant absences and standardized test failures. I need to get him engaged in school, somehow invested in his own achievement. He loves to draw and has a remarkable, natural talent for perspective sketching. I want to take down some of the mandated bulletin board material in order to put up an exhibit for his art. If he is recognized for his talent, maybe he'll be more inclined to participate in his education. But the last time I tried to finesse the bulletin board mandates, I got reamed by my compliance-obsessed assistant principal. How can I help Eddie?" ...

"...The stakes are high in inner-city schools, not for administrators and bureaucrats, but for the students. Children perpetually teeter on a precarious ledge--will they succeed in school and build self-worth, or become disenfranchised and drop out? Tragically, despite all the best efforts to help children by most teachers, the federal government, via the No Child Left Behind legislation, is taking a buzzsaw to the education and empowerment of voiceless, unwitting children. "

"...The stakes are high in inner-city schools, not for administrators and bureaucrats, but for the students. Children perpetually teeter on a precarious ledge--will they succeed in school and build self-worth, or become disenfranchised and drop out? Tragically, despite all the best efforts to help children by most teachers, the federal government, via the No Child Left Behind legislation, is taking a buzzsaw to the education and empowerment of voiceless, unwitting children.

"...NCLB, with its fixation on measuring success solely via high-stakes standardized testing, has created a poisonous culture of intimidation and compliance that hurts, not helps, needy students. "