Tuesday, March 27, 2007

America: Those The No Child Left Behind Act Left Behind


In the global conflict sparked by the war on terror and continued through what is now the civil war in Iraq, some victims may become lost amidst the death toll: us. And by "us" I refer to all of those who lead normal innocent lives yet forced to live with the consequences we allow to pass before our very eyes. While America and Iran flex their muscles at each other in a show of a complete lack of diplomacy and international relations, the youth of today continue to be mentally victimized by the authoritarian propaganda and fear of this administration as well as physically victimized by the wars it has created. After all, it is the young who go off to fight wars, isn't it?
And also, this generation is being led down the toilet by Bush and his loyal legions through his No Child Left Behind Act. I am not sure if it was purposely designed to fail the American populace in dumbing us down to the IQ of some of its leaders but it is quickly on its way to doing just that.(The reason I'm not worried about offending anyone with these puns is because the people they're directed toward wouldn't get them anyway.)
In the NCLB funds have not been accumulated to the amount required and its budget seems to be another sparkling promise made by the Bush Administration that they aren't planning on keeping. I suppose the issue of directing government funds came down to either education or the war in Iraq and Bush figured he got to be president so what's wrong with the education system? Not to mention all of the corruption taking places in schools across the country where test results and the number of minority students are manipulated so that by the legislation of the NCLB those schools get more $.
And a neat piece of trivia that not many people know about is Section 9528 in the NCLB which states basically that public secondary schools are required to provide military recruiters access to students. In addition, if the recruiters want any contact information on students the school is required to give it to them. And if that wasn't shady enough, the schools are not required to tell the students or their parents that this information was given to the U.S. military.
So give the government your tired, your poor, your huddled masses of children so that they can be taught the mere necessities a good soldier should know and then shipped off to the wars that profit the government. This cycle of producing a complacent, docile and obedient America is what is crippling us. While the rest of the world passes us by in education, we have become dependent--yes, dependent--on foreign imports and technical as well as medical advancements. And unless we break this cycle we or even our children will be the ones not smart enough to make it in this competitive world but just smart enough to fire a gun. Because you know we can't all afford the same education.
So protests the No Child Left Behind Act and force our legislators whom we elected to either abolish it or make radical changes to it. This document after all can be torn apart--only if they'd take a break from tearing up the Constitution. Bam! And that's how I see it.
--P.R.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good for people to know.