> I would rather that 20 kids be able to fly a balloon, and the 21st kid who can't read be shuffled off to some other program/classroom to learn to read, than f

> I would rather that 20 kids be able to fly a balloon, and the 21st kid who can't read be shuffled off to some other program/classroom to learn to read, than for 21 kids to sit in a classroom learning to read when 20 of them already know. So would I, and there's nothing in NCLB that stops that from happening. > All I had to do was reject the idea that children are all identical and if they aren't being exposed to the exact same education each then they are being misserved. Good for you, but again, this has nothing to do with NCLB. > has to take as axiomatic that the current school system is already optimal Strawman. No one claims that. I'm not saying that NCLB can't be improved, let alone that it is perfect. I'm merely pointing out that it doesn't have certain flaws. In some sense, I'm "old school" - I think that it helps a lot if you know where you actually are and where you want to end up before you decide what direction to go. Heck - I even think that it's useful to know what has been tried before and what happened. No, that's not nearly as much fun as describing utopia's outcomes as a plan but ....