Years ago, when we lived in our old neighborhood, we visited the base school there as part of our kindergarten shopping for L. The school was nice, and clean, but large; still, we had an open mind. Part of the “plug” or gimmick, if you want to call it that (we have grown very wary of all the gimmicks so many of the magnet schools offer in our particular county—each one with a new and interesting spin on education and learning.

In the walk-up line yesterday afternoon a mom and I talked about how we thought our kids had fared (they both don't test well) on the EOGs earlier that day. We were hopeful, nervous, sympathetic. The topic of the potential re-testing came up and she told me her son was most nervous about the possibility of having to take the tests over again, in a matter of days.

When I heard, a year or so back, that No Child Left Behind has also been called No Child Gets Ahead, I thought to myself: how absolutely fitting. Long before I paid much attention to No Child Left Behind, or thought about schools (when you're the parent of small preschoolers, you tend not to think about elementary schools), I never imagined in a million years that my own child would be one of those left behind--one of those who would fall through the cracks. I also never thought my own belief in the public school system would be so shattered.

As a teacher and parent, I'm hyper-aware of how much technology has impacted kids today. When I was in college, research and reading all took place in the library, or in a room, with piles of books stacked up on the desk, and note cards with citations and information stuffed into folder pockets and desk drawers. Writing papers was a long process in which you wrote first (sometimes even with a pen!), and then went back and carefully inserted sources and notes. These days, the process has become reversed--or skipped entirely.

At the risk of alienating my math-teacher mom and math-Ph.D. brother, I don’t hesitate to say that I don’t care all that much about math (in general). I did well enough in my math courses, but numbers were never really something that spoke to me the way words do (or, back in the day, the way sports did). And, as I think about K-Man’s future, I don’t usually think about his math aptitude. Apparently, I’m in the minority, however, as the Associated Press has released results from a poll that suggests a majority of parents want more math for their kids.

Really?