A Perspective on No Child Left Behind

The NY Times published an article today describing overcrowding at a middle school on Manhattan's Upper West Side: On Front Lines, Casualties. The principal comments that his regional office has not been able to help him with the overcrowding problem and even hinted that he should retire if he can't handle it. If his contact at the Region 10 office really responded to this principal in such a way, then I'm glad I'm not in Region 10! So far, I have found the staff of Region 1 very helpful - and at least sympathetic when they cannot change something.

The article goes on to describe how the school's programs are dreadfully overcrowded due to last-minute transfers under NCLB - except the programs for gifted, mainly white, upper-middle class students:

"What makes the situation at Booker T. so heartbreaking is the very children No Child Left Behind is supposedly helping, poor minority children, are the ones being hurt most by the transfers and overcrowding. And the school's gifted students — mainly white children of professional and middle-class parents — attend classes that are exempt from receiving transfers."

Food for thought.