An article in the Washington Post describes how some Fairfax county schools are wasting precious school time to serve about 10% of their students.  As the article goes, this 10% of students are in danger of failing one or more of the Standards of Learning and are assigned a remedial class while the other 90% of the population are allowed to spend their time however they see fit.  One teacher has done the calculations and it seems that almost 10 instructional days are lost on these remedial period by the end of the year.

This is not just limited to Fairfax county.  In two of the counties where I taught a similar method was used.  However, instead of having free time, teachers who were not of the "core subjects" were required to "teach" the free periods.  In one school, my non-remedial class had close to 60 students in it.  Not only was it impossible to teach that many kids, my classroom was way too small to fit them all in.  Instead, we ended up playing board games in the cafeteria for 45 minutes twice a week.  

The problem is that too much focus is being put on everyone being on the same level of competency.  It won't happen.  It shouldn't happen.  So it is a waste of time to strive towards that goal.  I hate to be ugly--but somebody has to be a garbage man.  Someone has to run a septic cleaning business.  And it's not likely that the post-graduate is going to apply.  It is ok if our entire population hasn't achieve some ridiculous level of academic excellence.  I don't think we should give up on the 10% but should we hold the other 90% back to wait for them?  No.  Our kids are in school to learn, so let's make sure their time there counts.