No Child Left Behind

A couple of articles from today's papers that involve No Child Left Behind.

The New York Times Magazine today has a cover story on the achievement gap. Very much worth reading. A comprehensive and somewhat hopeful look at an issue that challenges a lot of communities, including ours.

And Bob Gibson has an article in the Progress on the recent visit to Charlottesville by Ellen Sauerbrey, assistant secretary of state for refugees, and of how grossly unfair NCLB is to schools when it comes to non-English speakers. Refugees and other non-English speaking students are given one year - one year! - to be on grade level, as measured by the SOL exams. Otherwise their performance is counted against the school system for meeting NCLB standards and accreditation.

ACAC Downtown

The new ACAC downtown opened today and is fabulous. What a great addition to the expanding downtown. The workout room has large windows to the east and south - nothing like watching the sun come up while lifting weights! More significant to me is squash courts. I haven't played in at least 15 years, but have bought a new racquet (like racquets in all sports, the head is a lot larger). My college squash partner Joe Mason has likewise gotten a new racquet and hopefully we'll play soon.

I did play some racquetball this morning with ACAC owner Phil Wendel; a good workout but he beat me handily. I'll have to get him on the squash court sometime...