The former governor and soon to be former President of these United States enacted a program for educating our children called "No Child Left Behind". The purpose of which was to make sure that when students reach certain grades, they are able to pass specific benchmarks of knowledge, and if they can't pass the test, then they will be held back instead of "socially" promoted. Better to repeat a grade than to graduate illiterate.
This was a wonderful idea, but like most government programs it was totally over-engineered and developed by "educators", not teachers. (Educators are different from teachers, identified by their PhD and the impatient foot tapping while waiting to get out of the classroom and into administration.) The program's end result is that teachers are only able to go over the material needed to pass the tests. There is very little in the way of creative thinking or applied knowledge. The students being produced can name the 50 states and capitals, but can't place them on a map; they can solve algebra equations, but can't figure out the MPG of their parent's car. Our own daughter wasn't sure who won the second world war...
You might be saying "That's terrible" and thinking things can't get any worse. Of course, you'd be wrong. Dallas Independent School District has done away with No Child Left Behind, in favor of "Failure is NOT an Option". What this means is that teachers are not allowed to fail a student. I'll say that again: there are no more F's. The minimum grade allowed is 60%. If the kid doesn't do a lick of homework, turns in term papers filled with doodles and stick figures, as long as the child shows up for class, he will earn a D. If he doesn't show up for class, the school just marks him as moved out of area so he doesn't count as a drop out.
A local radio show host has labeled this the "Fog a Mirror" program. It's a good thing there are so many Wal-Marts and fast food joints, because that's the best that many of these kids are going to do. Idocracy is real, and happening faster than you can imagine!
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Oh dear...Idiocracy indeed. Does it make you wonder why I'm not too keen on going back into teaching?
Yeah. The district had an accounting error leaving them 84 MILLION in the red. On Thursday DISD laid off about 600 staff including teachers, office and admin, and counselors. They gave the teachers pink slips in the middle of the day on Thursday. Student-teacher ratio be damned, we must make our budget!!! Amazing.
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