Falling through the Cracks

The purported mission of No Child Left Behind is to ensure that every child in America has the chance to a quality education, a chance at college, and a chance at future success. No Child Left Behind is supposed to level the playing field for students across the country, regardless of race or socio-economics. No Child Left Behind... except for Catera.

Catera is one of my students who challenges me on a daily basis; not because she talks back when I give directions (Cene, Sierra, Jennifer) and not because she is one of those students who refuses to sit down during class (Anthony, Taylor).

Rather, the dilemma I face with Catera is more academic. No matter what modifications I make to the material I present, or how much time I spend with Catera one-on-one, she simply does not understand the vast majority of the material I present. Since the beginning of the year, I have witnessed her struggle to accomplish simple tasks that her peers sail through. This past Friday I found out the underlying problem.

The sixth-grade counselor requested a meeting with my two partner teachers and myself last Friday to discuss some updated modifications for our special education students. One of the students whom we discussed was Catera. The counselor presented us with her IQ test results which were completed before Winter Break.

Turns out that Catera is only four percentage points away from being labeled mentally retarded. She is about thirty percentage points below average intelligence for her age. When I saw these numbers, I felt sick to my stomach. This is why she is having so much trouble with the material and why, despite my best efforts, little headway has been made in bringing her up to where she needs to be at this point.

What the counselor told me next made me irate. Due to NCLB regulations, the school is only allowed to use federal and state dollars to remediate for certain students. Students who possess a gap between their IQ and their performance level, exhibit a learning disability and therefore qualify for one-on-one and small-group intervention programs offered by the school.

However, because Catera is actually performing to the best of her ability, albeit drastically lower than her peer group, she does not exhibit a learning disability (just severely low intelligence) and therefore does not qualify to receive ANY special instruction. No one-on-one tutoring. No pullout resource programs. No special modifications to the material presented in class. Nothing. Just a seat in a general education classroom where she is expected to fend for herself; all 11 years of her.

Tell me, George W. Bush, how does that not leave Catera behind. The school counselor said the best we'd be able to hope for her is that she gets put on a vocational track in middle school, drops out of high school and is able to secure a good job by age 15. WHAT?!

You won't hear about Catera in the president's State of the Union speech Tuesday night, but she is exactly the student who should be at the center of our national debate on education. There is something rotten in the state of education and it begins with No Child Left Behind.