The one room school house worked.

I have found a reference for those who would like to brush up
on the NCLB. I found it in the wikipedia; which makes it both
readable and informative, yet unofficial, link.

There was a time when students with widely disparate needs sat together in a single classroom with a single teacher and it worked well. Obviously I wasn't there, and this is conjecture, but apparently students learned on their own, and teachers were there to help individual students with their individual issues.

The model has changed. Now, students are grouped by chronological age, arbitrary but easily measured, arranged in five rows of six, and marched lockstep through 12 years of education despite a myriad of issues that specifically contraindicate the approach.

As a direct result of the Standards Based Assessment that is the bedrock of the No Child Left Behind Act, this nonfunctional model will never change. If it is conceded that on any given day, all children who are of the same chronological age will be tested over precisely the same material, it leaves no choice except to move them all together in a group. Any child who loses step with the group, for the most, is forever screwed.

Children by their very nature are inquisitive and eager to learn, like kittens. If we allowed them to follow their noses (while keeping them safe) they would become engaged and adept learners. Instead, we completely ignore their inherent interests and force upon them, our ideas about what they should be learning.

Clearly there are some things that children should learn.
There is information and skill sets that high school graduates
must reasonably possess. That specific information and those
specific skill sets are less important when they are juniors in
high school, less important still as sophomores, and least
important at all in kindergarten.

Granted, there is a progression in some skills. One cannot
tackle algebra as a senior in high school, without having gained
certain knowledge and skills in previous years.

Clearly there must be some blending. At the beginning of the
continuum allow children to follow their noses. Teach them
how to learn as independently as possible, and to be decent
human beings who contribute positively to their communities.

As they mature, and as they gain self discipline, then start
pushing the necessary albeit less intrinsically motivating
curriculum.

If we ever hope to meet students individual needs and wants,
we have to leave the NCLB model which by its very definition
completely ignores the individuality of learners, and virtually
guarantees their eventual disengagement from the process.

We have to concede that there in no such thing as a disengaged learner.

We have to concede that we can lead children to education,
but we cannot make them learn. They have to want to.