Certain schools are required to show a 5 percent increase in standardized test scores over two years if they fall short, students have the option of transferring to a better school or remaining where they are and receiving one-on-one tutoring. The tremors of the No Child Left Behind Act are being felt beyond just summer school, however. "I don't want to criticize Bush, but did he think of this? We need some money here." "What about these other kids that have no parent at home or who have no extra parent to take up the slack?" Ross asks. Just before school let out this year, Fulton County teacher Gornata Ross had no answer for working parents wondering where they'd send their kids on summer days. While summers off may be good news for kids, it's left their parents in a quandary. Kids who are failing can take classes this summer, but only if they're failing the subject, and not simply if they want a refresher course. Atlanta students can still take some advanced classes but the district made the classes tougher to qualify for.
In Fulton County, the school district will offer summer classes only to kids who are failing Gwinnett and Cobb are doing the same.
Kids who want to attend have to find their own way - a tough task for poor families who either don't own a car or use it to get to jobs that start long before school. It's also cutting transportation to kids who don't live near the schools chosen as summer sites. In DeKalb County, where Ozier teaches, the district is saving money by reducing the number of locations offering classes. Cutting summer school - a safety net for at-risk students - will make meeting those strict federal standards even tougher. The requirements of President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act are forcing school districts to do more with less. In response, they're slashing programs like summer school, putting at further risk children who are already falling behind. Every school district in the state is facing budget cuts. New immigrants aren't the only ones losing ground this summer.
Summertime blues the who how to#
"Some of them will come back and not know how to speak English," Ozier says. Without it, many students will have no exposure to English for months. Thanks to cuts in education spending, there is no summer school at Cary Reynolds Elementary, where Ozier teaches. Ozier liked the chatter it's silence that he's worried about. For these children of immigrants who have settled in the neighborhoods along Buford Highway, where there's a taqueria and tienda de comestibles on every corner, a second language wasn't a priority.īut just eight months after entering Ozier's class, they not only spoke English, they hurled strings of incessant questions at unsuspecting adults with a persistence that rivals any 6-year-old American. Last September, many of the first-graders in Lance Ozier's class could barely speak English.
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