Will "No Child Left Behind Law" be finally left behind ?

This pic was taken last October, but seems to fit yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's actions!

Yesterday (almost two days ago, according to the clock next to my computer), President Obama called for a broad overhaul of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, proposing to reshape a number of numskull provisions that encouraged instructors to teach to tests, narrowed the curriculum, and labeled one in three American schools as failing.

Having only recently having taught a number of the "products" of that law, I can only applaud the new initiatives--and the common sense in leaving in place some of the sensible ideas included in the NCLB Law that were agreed upon by the late Sen. Edward Kennedy and (admittedly and surprisingly true) George W. Bush's NCLB team who worked on the bill for so long.

Still, I couldn't help but notice there was no mention of parent's responsibility. Maybe I'll pick up on that missing element when I read the entire bill on Tuesday or so.

This (parental responsibility) is still the number one problem with our educational system, IMHO. If the parents don't care, the children won't care. Most of the children that drop out of high school here in Ocean Shores do so because their parents allow them to quit. Except for a few limp local laws there seems to be no way to keep children in school.

Another problem (still unaddressed) is a meaningful comparison between rich suburban schools and poor inner city or rural schools. As yet, it appears to me that there is no mention of this in the proposed legislation. If we solve the problems in the poor inner city and rural schools that have the high dropout rates we will not have to worry about the others.

The one bright point on revamping the educational system is that we now have an intelligent president who himself sets the example. If a person with very little knowledge like Mr. "Mission Accomplished" Bush can become president there is no incentive to go to school at all--even to attend Yale University!