NCLB does not judge schools fairly

We disagree with Catherine Barrow's comments to Fence Post (Oct. 1) about her suggested criteria for deciding the "return on investment" for the funding of public education.

The school ratings under the No Child Left Behind program are not a fair basis for judging a school's performance. For instance. when a small group of students within a school falls below an arbitrary score set in Washington, the whole school is labeled as a "failing" school.

The following analogy might clarify your understanding of how this system would work in an individual classroom. Your child has brought home spelling tests with A's, but her/his report card shows an F. When you ask for an explanation, you receive the following answer. "There are several students in your child's class who failed their spelling tests, and therefore we're giving the whole class an F."

This same grading/rating program is in place with NCLB. (Hypothetical case) When a group of 10 special education students falls below the required score in math, then the whole school is labeled as failing.

The NCLB program criterion is designed to shed the worst possible light on public education. Clearly this approach has succeeded to some degree as reflected in Barrow's comments which suggest "dismantling" it.

Where things are wrong, they should be fixed. Using a criterion that does not fairly reflect the performance of a school and cynical comments about "dismantling" public education do not serve the goal of educating our youth. Using the ratings of NCLB to evaluate the "return on investment" for public education funding is clearly unfair and biased against public education.

Jim and Margaret Shrigley

Schaumburg