By The TimesLedger
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Kew Gardens) is right on the money when he says that the federal No Child Left Behind act is “fatally flawed” and a “prescription for disaster.” In essence the law gives parents of children attending underachieving public schools the right to demand the transfer of their children to another school.
This is feel-good legislation, well-intended but poorly thought out. In the end it becomes yet another unfunded mandate from the federal bureaucracy that will likely do more harm than good. Just look at the numbers. According to the city Department of Education, there are 228,000 New York City schoolchildren attending underachieving schools. There are approximately 15,000 seats open in schools that are not underachieving.
Last week the Education Department began sending out letters to the parents of kids in the underachieving schools advising them of their rights under the No Child Left Behind Act. The floodgates are about to open.
What then will happen to the underachieving schools? The legislation does not provide a nickel for textbooks or lab equipment. It doesn’t even pay for the massive task of processing the thousands of transfer requests. Nor does it address the principle that children are best served when they can attend classes a neighborhood school.
There was a reason why the founding fathers wanted education to be a state responsibility.
