No Child Moves Ahead

I am so sick of hearing about this drivel, "No Child Left Behind" - where did THAT come from?

If no one ever gets left behind, how can someone move ahead?

What happens when someone is absent from school?

I have been asked countless times by my own students, when returning from an unauthorized absence, "Did we do anything yesterday?"

My response is usually, "No, we closed the entire school because you were not here" and now I wonder if that is going to become a reality. If little Johnny decides to smoke a bowl on the way to school and stops at Mickey D's for a quick McMuffin, how can class proceed without him? Whatever the class learns, Johnny will be left behind.

Who came up with this ridiculous idea?

Now, I am all for helping students who need help, tutoring, extra work, as well as giving more advanced work to more advanced students, but it's an unfortunate fact of life that not everyone learns at the same rate. So, if I am to honor this creed, "No Student Left Behind" then I am no longer able to give enrichment work, and rather than tutor an individual student I must make the class crawl at a snail's pace to accommodate the slowest student's learning rate.

No matter how hard you want to try, you cannot make everyone the same. it's impossible to move forward if you do.