What I like, and don't...

One favorable aspect of "No Child Left Behind," is teacher accountability. Every teacher I've met agrees they should be able to show how each student has improved as a result of spending an academic year with them.

However, I'd like to coin a saying I recently overhead, "You don't fatten a pig by weighing it." Teachers should not have to use all their time paying attention to statistics, rather than to their students. Even in a school who meets "Annual Yearly Progress," I find my Planning time being diverted to meaningless "Individual Plans for Student Success," and classroom statistics. Suffering are the creation of new and fresh lesson plans, and class time required for creative and meaningful dialogue in my classroom.

I hope I am wrong to envision the day we are wondering whatever happened to, "American Ingenuity," as teachers are being forced to quickly move through classroom spontaneity because it is not part of that year's standard curriculum (and therefore, testing focus). The wonder and fun of learning is being subverted to ensure the Bell Curve is flattened out. Talented students are being more frequently overlooked for resources focused on bringing slower students up to government "par." Although test scores may look like they are improving, I am afraid we are reinforcing mediocrity like no other time in our history.