When I was in middle school, No Child Left Behind came around and so did the ridiculous standards. I was in 7th grade and we were told we had to take the 6th grade standards test for English. I thought something was screwy because we weren't taught to the "standards" in 6th grade. We didn't know what they were. So, we took the test, we had to write a narrative account. The majority of the 7th grade students in the school district failed it with a score of a 1 or 0. I wasn't surprised - we weren't taught the material. Those of us who failed were told we could take an OPTIONAL class to learn the material. The class would either take place during our elective periods or after school. I really enjoyed my elective periods which were French and art. So, of course, I did not want to miss that. And I felt having to take the class after school was like a punishment, since it wasn't our fault we weren't taught the material. So, since it was "optional,"  I opted NOT to take the class. I wrote a letter to the school district explain why I opted not to take the class, even though it wasn't required to do that. They ended up sending the letter to my principal, resulting in me getting pulled OUT OF CLASS (yeah, smart move), to talk to my principal. To my surprise, my principal was very supportive and actually stood up for me (however, that year was the last year I saw him - he moved to GA). I ended up getting a letter back from the school district threatening me that I would not be successful if I didn't take the class. They told me I would be in high school for 5 years instead of 4. They said I could be in remedial classes, and not graduate with a normal diploma. Well, they were right about one thing. I didn't graduate with a normal diploma. I graduated with an honors diploma. Besides that, I had a normal high school education. I didn't need remedial courses. I didn't stay in high school for 5 years. I graduated in 4 years with honors and I did well on my SATs. I got into a good college. They threatened me for not taking an optional course, when they were the one who did not implement standards into the schools soon enough.

That is just my experience with the school district. There have been numerous other issues. Even with the members of our school board, they focus too much on petty issues to focus on the real problems. They were too worried about our Superintendent teaching a night class at a local college one night a week, saying it was taking too much time away from the school district. When they could have been focusing on the issues of academics and standards and how they wouldn't give the cheerleaders of a local high school a few days off for a competition in FL when they allowed other athletic teams and organizations have days off and funding for trips. Or once one of the high schools football team won the state championship on a Saturday night and the Superintendent decided to give that high school, and only that high school, the day off on Monday, 2 days after. There have been numerous situations where the school district has made poor decisions. Although, a lot of it can be blamed on the state education department also.

Schools need to be fixed. Education needs major reform. It is time to give kids a better education. What have we been waiting for?!