I, too, have to wonder how many kids our (sarcasm alert) NEW! Improved! State-of-the-Art!! educational system is utterly failing because we as a culture are simply disregarding the fact that not everyone is has destiny/desire for highly demanding cognitive tasks like advanced mathematics or critical analyses of great works of literature...
whatever happened to vocational/technical skill building in high schools?
The kids that were so (rightly) proud to excel in those areas and graduate with high school diplomas, ready to move into trades and apprenticeships, are the kids that NCLB
has unquestionably left behind. In every possible way, we are failing those people by telling them in ways subtle and dramatic that their natural inclinations and abilities are useless.
While my child might be able to do mathematics and analyze Shakespeare well, I would definitely not bet on her to be able to help fix a leaky faucet... and I have a lot more day-to-day 'use' for the plumbers in the world than the analyzers of great dramatic works of the English language, let's just say... so why is ONE of those people worthy of praise and the other one told to "work harder" at "skills that matter?" Isn't this backwards??
Even if we COULD produce a society in which everyone is a lawyer, a mathematician, a linguist, or a physician....
who wants to live in that place?? I don't. Not unless there are still people to help me fix my car and my house.
By applying a universal (and too narrow) standard to all students, we are ignoring the rich diversity of abilities and natural talents of our children. BOTH ends of that spectrum realize with frustration how pointless that standard is for themselves. At the same time, we seem to be devolving into a culture of mediocrity so that "everyone" can meet the same measure of "success" and earn their gold star/USDA seal of approval.
<SIGH>
It's very very sad.
