NCLB has left behind most children
The news regarding student aptitude scores in the Oct. 31 Daily Herald have finally validated what many have felt all along. No Child Left Behind has left most of our children behind. Our experiences with Palatine District 15 were wonderful for grades 1-6. Most District 15 children, however, are abandoned in their time of highest need — junior high. The common feeling among parents is that the only thing the children were taught was “how to pass tests that showed the teachers could teach children how to pass the test they were being taught to pass.”
No life skills of real value were brought to the table from what we could discern in over their last two years. Many children made it to high school ill-prepared. Now the state results prove that out. Our children’s reading, math and science scores have fallen into the abyss.
It is time to reassess the value of No Child Left Behind in America and start teaching our children what they need to learn to become functional adults and bring them up to the standards that the rest of the world adheres to.
Tom Lucas
Hoffman Estates