[TontoKowalski]

Look, for example, of the process by which a High School diploma, with respect to basic subjects, such as English usage, gradually deteriorated to something less significant than a sixth grade education in 1900.

As a high school teacher, I can tell you with some authority that a high school diploma is becoming worthless. No Child Left Behind was a mistake. It may have been well intentioned, but it was a mistake. Virtually the only metric that high school administrators are concerned with is "graduation rate." Everything else... proficiency on state exams, ACT/SAT scores, honors' diplomas... is completely secondary to that. Those things afford bragging rights if they come out well, but in the long run, it's graduation rate that matters.

No effort is too much, or too expensive, to drag the bottom-dwelling potheads across the line to keep the grad rate up.

[Ohioan]

Thank you for bearing clear witness to the outrageous betrayal of American youth. Frankly, in my opinion, "No Child Left Behind," was the perfect example of "politically correct" idiocy, as applied to education. It was to education, what Obamacare is to medicine.

Nothing is more inherently local & immediate than the relationship between a teacher and a student. Layering bureaucratic regulations over the process--and sticking a Federal nose into existing State & local bureaucracies amounts to precisely that--is as counter-productive as it is fiscally wasteful. It is also unconstitutional.

For a further discussion of relevant concepts: Public Schools: Issues & Reality; Education & Politics.

William Flax