Amen.

It's all very well saying it's the parents' responsibility...but what about when parents fail in that responsibility? Whose job is it to step into the gap?

It becomes the teachers' to the detriment of the other students. In an ideal world education would have a flexible option for the kid whose parents failed but schools that are failing actually get less funding because it feels good to certain Glenn Beck demographics. NCLB takes public education back to its totalitarian roots, but the need for cannon fodder isn't what it was so it doesn't even suit its original purpose.

You're stuck in a rut here. Not using birth control is not all about not being able to read. Being able to read does suddenly give a person the skills/intelligence to act on what they've read. it's like the difference between hearing and listening. Not using birth control is often about religion and about having something that belongs to you, something that you are the boss of. And when you see the schools "looking after" those somethings once they get past the small cute stage and becomes something you can't handle, you don't worry about the responsibilities you have because you don't see any.

If the parents fail, then it is the job of society. But not by giving the failing parents more money or sending them to "parenting" or remedial math classes and falling back on the schools -they've already demonstrated that system of education doesn't work for them. That's a cop out. Society needs to take the failed child on and parent them properly. If adoption is the way, so be it. Give the money to a family who will do that job and turn that child around. I'd prefer the failing parent and the child to be adopted, but I'm a dreamer. This is America. We don't really help the nasty dirty losers, we throw (tax deductible) money at the problem, so they can spend time being "educated" out of sight or clothed in nice new winter coats so they look more acceptable, while we feel good about our charitable donations. And then when they finally break the law because they don't know how to survive legally and have no life skills, then we get to lock them up out of sight. Excellent.

#awaitsthedaywhenreproductivesystemscanbeturnedoffuntilparentinglicenseisissued

True dat, about the reading.

Reading as a skill is entirely unrelated to intelligence. I have taught highly intelligent adults who found the reading skill almost impossible to master. By the same token it is a proven fact that someone with profoundly low IQ levels (including children born with severe downs syndrome) may well be able to acquire the reading skill: they may not be able to interpret or understand what it is they're reading, but the mechanical act of associating the visual symbols with the appropriate sounds, and the technical understanding of how those sounds go together are things anybody might be able to learn. And anybody might find difficult.

You must not be from around here, why your attitude is almost Un American...;)

Laughed out loud - and added to my quotes file.

Possibly. But crack babies come pretty close.

Disagree.
Just don't shout me down because of my lack of children; that was a choice.

No. You've been reading too much Kurt Vonnegut. Or been in America too long. Okay I hold my hands up and say I don't know that system, but it's over-used as a clarion call by the right - who don't use the state system anyway.

Pete - crack babies are not part of this discussion. In the same way that children incapacitated by cerebral palsy and Down's syndrome and autism aren't. It's an interesting point, but not relevant.

Personally I am for mandatory birth control for underage girls. Shriek! Shriek! This is against religion and the law of free will! [not here, in the wider world]
Well if intercourse has an age limit, surely it is legal. It might not keep children in school, but such is human nature. Many girls were married before 16 in teh olden days.

I had a hundred things to say, but have been watching a documentary at the same time.
The way some people preach Jesus' message of peace, love and understanding makes me pretty sick. Too sick to carry on with this (no Dwellar was involved)

Abort all your children while they are still tadpoles. You will burn for all eternity, but the cells you loved before you even knew they existed will only be in Limbo. Serves you right for taking the Pill (technically an abortion as it rejects fertilised eggs) which is an abomination.

Then again having 13 children who go home to God via starvation and disease is much more worthy. God will then love you for the protracted suffering of each drawn, desperate face you send him. His will is done.

Not over here--in America the crack babies have to go through the same standardized testing rigamarole that the other kids do. That's the kind of situation that Griff was referring to with his own students. You can work to get certain concessions as part of their special ed status, but along with that comes the right to special education services themselves, which there is often not money to provide, so the concessions don't get made, unless the parents are pushing for it (and in the case of crack baby parents, they're not likely to push for anything other than a longer school day.) The crack babies are precisely the ones that "cannot be left behind," and yet there's no money to give them the separate classrooms with appropriate (lower) levels of skills expectations that they need.

The educational system is passing 65% of students who cannot pass a compass exam.
Yes it is the parents responsibility, but to say so, as if that is an excuse, in light of the huge percentage, is so laissez-faire. It's like saying the dog ate my homework.


ahwell

I was being facetious about the birth control. btw

It solves the problem as about as much as saying it's the parents fault.

OR, I'm being overly cynical in a very Brit way.

That said, No Child Left Behind is the name of an act here which -imo- has very little to do with ensuring no child is left behind and a whole lot to do with seeing education as an exercise in passing age-specific standardised tests.