To the editor:

School board members propose to Leave No Child Behind by dumbing down the curriculum. Both the law and the school board confuse education with testing: Teachers will “teach the test” and kids will score higher, proving to Washington politicians that teachers know how to teach, and school budgets will be protected. As a wise farmer once said, “You can weigh the hog and you can measure the hog, but sooner or later, you’re going to have to feed it.”

The No Child Left Behind Act ties school budgets, curriculum and jobs to kids’ test scores. (Is it any wonder cheating has become rampant?) When schools with sizable low-income and non-English-speaking children “fail,” the law punishes everyone. School boards cut programs and lay off teachers to address reduced funding, and the issue of education remains a sidebar to the story. Is “teaching the test” the best use of professional educators? Are children in punished schools, now with less money, fewer programs and smaller faculty and staff, likely to do better?

Conveniently, the No Child Left Behind Act ensures that military recruiters have improved access to our most vulnerable children.

The most important steps we can take in defense of our children and our schools are two: Tell the school board that dumbing down the curriculum to improve test scores is antithetical to the quality of education we want for our children. Then vote Bush out of office, rescind this obscene act, and put money into educating our children instead of getting them killed overseas.

Jane Gibson,

Lawrence