Left Behind

In the educational dialogues of our nation, there seems to be implicated a party that I am not aware of. Declarations of expectations are boldly enumerated; banners of standards waved; war cries issued; all directed to whom? There are the obvious players that I think of: students, teachers, their families, the community. In fact, these are the only players that I can think of.
The Bush administration, through No Child Left Behind, seems to be doing the best at making an attack: the schools themselves. This is a hazy opponent. "We want accountability from our schools!" From the buildings themselves? We are failing to address directly that which we need and from whom we need it.

His first year there, my cousin Anthony was regarded as one of the finest special education teachers the secondary educational institution employing him had ever seen. Now he’s working with his father-in-law contracting real estate. Some egregious secretarial error mis-sent him a pink slip? Nope. Anthony was not paid enough to comfortably support his wife and two children. He may not have been the primary casualty; Anthony left many children behind when he quit his teaching job this past year.
How could we have prevented that?