School district needs to get a C-L-U-E

Schools in Lincoln (RI) have decided that they will no longer hold spelling bees. Their reason for doing so ought to take your breath away:

The administrators decided to eliminate the spelling bee, because they feel it runs afoul of the mandates of the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

"No Child Left Behind says all kids must reach high standards," Newman said. "It’s our responsibility to find as many ways as possible to accomplish this."

The administrators agreed, Newman said, that a spelling bee doesn’t meet the criteria of all children reaching high standards -- because there can only be one winner, leaving all other students behind.

"It’s about one kid winning, several making it to the top and leaving all others behind. That’s contrary to No Child Left Behind," Newman said.

A spelling bee, she continued, is about "some kids being winners, some kids being losers."

As a result, the spelling bee "sends a message that this isn’t an all-kids movement," Newman said.

Read on, because it gets better (or worse, depending on your perspective). This school district has completely bought into the asinine philosophy that competition among kids is harmful to self-esteem, and thus should be avoided.

Beyond that, I had to laugh at the logic quoted above. They think that "No Child Left Behind" literally means that no child is allowed to do any better than any other.

Nonsense like this isn't limited to Rhode Island; it shows up in varying degrees across the fruited plain. It's just one of a multitude of reasons we are homeschooling our little one.

(Credit: Best of the Web)