No Child Left Behind (NCLB): The elementary school across the street is a NCLB school. It doesn't meet the academic standards required by the NCLB Act. The school is mostly populated by immigrant children whose parents don't speak English or at least don't speak English as their primary language. Because the school is a NCLB school, my children get to move to the beginning of the waiting list at other schools in the district -- schools we choose, which have good academic records.

The irony is that our home school is half surrounded by three new town home complexes and a single family home community filled with middle class and upper middle class families. If all the kids from these communities went to the school across the street, the school would not be a NCLB school.

An NCLB school is not always and probably is not usually the fault of the staff of the schools. There's a big difference between kids whose parents can't help them with homework and kids of parents who can. NCLB schools need more resources to compensate for the help the children cannot get at home.

Middle and upper middle class families need to be encouraged to keep their kids in their local schools. These families could be enticed to stay by offering free, quality tutoring and special educational opportunities that might not be available to the schools across town that are in the top 85% of the state's schools. All children would benefit, and the struggling kids would rise up closer to the performance of their middle class peers.

Most of all, a few bright stars from the children on the opposite side of the school may have the opportunity to rise up and meet their true potential. It is the sharp, motivated students who don't have the family support needed to develop their children that define the term NCLB. These children are the ones who do get left behind when the upper and middle families pull their children out of the local school.

Magobrillo

Magobrillo