Krug: 
Time to leave ‘No Child’ behind

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Only the most despicable among us willingly would leave behind a child.

Hence, the marketing genius behind the naming of the No Child Left Behind Act – the jumbo shrimp of mislabeled educational programs.

As the latest round of results from around McHenry County clearly shows, this program is leaving us behind. Actually, to be more precise, it’s taking our tax money, laughing at us, and then leaving us behind. Even though our students’ scores are improving, we are continuing to “fail.”

In data made public Friday, 14 of McHenry County’s 19 school districts did not reach minimum adequate yearly progress marks as outlined by NCLB legislation.

Fail rate: 74 percent. Sweet.

But maybe our “failure” is a good thing.

If one of the best-funded counties in the state can’t hack it, perhaps that says something about the worthlessness of this initiative.

Another “failed” year might just convince Congress to call an audible. NCLB is a nightmare. Teachers hate it. Kids probably aren’t any smarter now when compared with their international peers than they were before the program started, and teachers and students alike are saddled with the foul stench of a shortsighted program that was thrust upon us all.

NCLB, an “act to close the achievement gap with accountability, flexibility, and choice, so that no child is left behind,” was one of the biggest bum-rushes in the history of ’Merica; the kind of esoteric legislation that takes one stroke of a pen to put into place and might require decades to scrub clean.

Republicans and Democrats fawned all over each other to put this piece of bipartisan bologna into action in 2002. It was supposed to level the playing field and ensure that all American kids had the chance to develop compulsory skills at acceptable levels and change the trajectory of education in this country. I suspect that it isn’t doing that.

Clearly, we need to do something about that. Consider the 2003 study compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics.

In that compilation, the United States’ 15-year-olds ranked 24th in math literacy. Sorry, Iceland, Luxembourg and the Slovak Republic. You might have wanted to finish 24th, but it was all ours. You had to settle for smaller numbers.

Liechtenstein, long feted as the world’s leading producer of sausage casings and false teeth, also ranked ahead of the U.S. Only five nations – Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Mexico – finished with lower marks.

Then consider our national eighth-grade reading proficiency rate is about 70 percent, and that about a million kids each year drop out of school. Not exactly a great return on the $543 billion that Americans spend on public schools, a total estimated by the NCES.

Our kids should be maximizing the time that they spend in the classroom, interacting with and learning from energized and engaged teachers who challenge our students to be their best. They can’t do that under the shadow of NCLB, a still unfunded mandate.

NCLB dupes some into thinking that there is an actual program in place to improve our children’s academic progress. That’s not really the deal. It’s merely a testing system with a progressive score requirement that measures progress of our students through testing conducted on a single day – just one of the 220 that kids and teachers share each school year.

It is an initiative that provides the appearance that something is being done to improve our kids.

If only it actually made them better.

• • •

C. Everett Kook: Two of our illustrious drive-by comment-droppers took me to task last week for my column about preparing for H1N1. One called my “attempt at funny” neither “funny nor helpful.” Another noted that H1N1 was here (I guess he or she was expecting that some warning sirens would be blaring across the county) because he or she had heard that a school kid in Wonder Lake had been diagnosed with that flu type.

To be sure, I don’t find H1N1 the least bit funny. Rodney Dangerfield’s bits from the 1970s, the Cleveland Browns’ uniforms, and when someone steps on the tines of a rake, thus causing the handle to come flying up toward their nose, are things that I consider funny.

I find the public panic over a potential outbreak equal parts fascinating and frustrating, but not funny. We all can do little things to protect our kids and ourselves. If we follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pragmatic and sensible recommendations, we all stand a far better chance of avoiding this bug.

As for the child in Wonder Lake being diagnosed with H1N1, let me offer this news flash: There are countless confirmed cases across northern Illinois, as there are elsewhere around the country. We’ve been writing about the spread of the illness for, oh, I don’t know, half a year. H1N1 is everywhere, and it affects people in different ways depending on their personal health condition and circumstances.

C’mon, people. Smarten up. Do what you need to do to stay safe. If my distillation of the CDC’s recommendations didn’t work for you, take a moment to read them in full. Find them at CDC.gov.

Do us all a favor and sneeze into your elbow, preferably the elbow farthest away from me, and stop watching so much daytime cable TV news.

• • •

All in: Don’t forget about the second annual Johnsburg Educational Partnership Foundation Casino Night, scheduled for 6 p.m. to midnight on Nov. 14 at the Johnsburg Community Club.

I had a great time dealing Texas Hold ’Em poker last year and almost never misdealt. In fact, 60 percent of the time, I got it right every time. The event also will feature blackjack, craps, a money wheel and, if you are feeling continental, roulette. Please, no berets.

I’ve always admired what JEPF does behind the scenes to help fund special projects within District 12. It’s their ingenuity and hard work that helps to keep a lid on taxes in the district and gives the community a chance to come together and share in good times for a common cause. It’s a model program that parents from other local school districts should see for themselves.

To get involved or to sponsor a table, give Leslie Koscinski a call at 815-759-2791.

• • •

And finally … : Tell me I am not the only one who gets a tad uncomfortable when the ad for DirecTV that features David Spade and the late Chris Farley comes up in rotation.

It features a clip from Farley, doing his classic “Fat guy in a little coat” scene from the movie “Tommy Boy,” as Spade talks direcTLY to the camera and pitches the satellite provider.

It’s morose, does nothing to honor Farley, and conjures an icky feeling inside.

In short, it’s awful.

Chris Krug is executive editor of the Northwest Herald. Contact Chris by calling 815-459-4122 or via e-mail at ckrug@nwherald.com. Keep up with Chris’ rants, raves and insights by following ChrisKrug (no space) at Twitter.com.

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