NO CHILD GETS AHEAD

GW rammed through his no child left behind with the help of his majority in congress and some pretty high profile democrats. So far the results are stunningly bad. Teachers are now teaching to the test rather teaching how to think. It is an unfunded mandate that is merely a smokescreen for holding back the brightest and furthering the march towards uniform mediocrity.
I don't know about your school district but we are struggling. We've lost our late buses. Have fund raisers all the time. Our district is in debt big time. We are closing 2 schools. All extracurricular activities come with a price tag that my parents never had to pay in my youth. Some of our facilities are less than adequate. Teachers are leaving. Classes are crowded. From what I've read, we are not in a unique situation, this is happening from coast to coast in most every school district.
Enough whining! For a fairly liberal guy, I'm about to offer some pretty conservative solutions. I say lets get back to a spirit of competition and innovation among districts and even the states. Granted, some of my ideas will sound radical but I would not offer them unless I've studied and believe in them.
1- Lets get the Federal gov't out of education. The fed could do away with the dept of education and simply offer funds equally back to states based on the number of students in that state. This could be fairly managed by congress.
2- Students of all grades could get credit for helping with the upkeep of their own school. Age appropriate janitorial duties.Students would be given electives so that all slots(other than boiler upkeep, which could be done to a certain degree) so that both the facility and the students needs are met. This is being done in Japan,
3- We have these large schools that we don't use all year. Why not divide the whole year into 4 equal quarters and meet the needs of students for the seasons that families, sports, vacations, or other reason might require. This is currently done in the Scandinavian countries with great success.
4- Separate the genders in the classroom. Every study I've ever read supports this for logical reasons.
5-Involve the students and parents in a district wide school uniform policy. This eliminates the disparity between the well off and the low income students. Some students will wear 100$ pair of shoes, while others don't have a 100$ worth of clothes.
6-Initiate accredited programs for the cafeteria. Instead of the 'Lunch Lady' we could have a teacher run the food service class which would entail business , food prep and economics.
7- Initiate an agri/business class. Have students engage in actual food production,where practical. Students in rural areas could offset some of their own schools costs and enter into contracts to supply other schools with staples, potato's, carrots, vegetables and maybe even beef,poultry and pork. To me this sounds like a real win/win situation.
These are just a few examples of what I mean by innovative and competitive thinking. I'm sure that there are many others which would lead to more parental involvement,greater student pride in themselves and their schools and less cost to the school districts.
We often hear of reports now that say China and India are producing a combined 600,000 engineers a year while America is producing only 70,000. Further more, many of our college freshmen are having to take remedial classes just to get them up to speed to the high school education they should have already received.
This is not GW's fault entirely, although he bears much accountability. This is a societal result for varied reasons.