New Guidelines for No Child Left Behind

The government is again trying to make No Child Left Behind a success and Obama is now promising that by the year 2020 every child will be college and carreer ready. George F. Will, once being in the education arena as a former professor of political philosophy at Michigan State University, has written this insightful editorial on why this theory has never worked and will never work and can identify with the frustration felt by educators, parents, and students as it pertains to guidelines that constantly change in order to make the numbers look good. Since federal education policies began in 1965 there has never been a graduation rate that exceeded 77.1%, and that was in the year 1969! The governments intervention into the educational system has proven to not be effective even with the monetary incentives rewarded to those schools who show increases in proficiency while at the same time lowering the definition of what proficiency is. I agree with Will when he states that 'Washington should set national standards and measurements and leave states free to choose how to meet them'. I have known many wonderfully enthusiastic teachers who were constantly worried about meeting some standard and felt it took away from the joy of their chosen profession. Will could have expanded on thoughts of why federal education standards have been failures and graduation rates have never been high, but he did not, so I will put in my two cents. My first thought focuses on the areas of our country where education might be of lesser importance than learning the family business or the need to work to help support family. Secondly, just because a person does not graduate from high school does not automatically make them prone to failure. There are many people who did not find interest in mainstream education, focused on what did interest them, and have made a success of their lives.