In several posts over the years, I have wondered aloud about what I thought was a poorly conceived connection between NCLB and politicians concerns with the capacity of the U.S. to compete economically. While getting a higher proportion of students to a minimum level of proficiency is a worthy goal, I have suggested that this goal seemed to me to be different from the goal of generating the creative and advanced types needed to move the economy forward. If resources are limited and fixed and if the goal was to focus on education as economic development, wouldn’t it make more sense to focus more resources on gifted education?
Research just released appears to support my prediction that NCLB would be detrimental to more capable students.
The point is we have so many goals for education and we are cutting rather than increasing resources. I still like what my wife has proposed as a motto – “move every child forward”. It appears that where we focus our limited resources does matter.
