No Child Left Behind

So I was driving to work the other morning, and a glance through my sideview mirror prompted a thought that is probably not completely original but which will be discussed here anyway. It's about all this "No Child Left Behind" craziness.

My proposal is this: if we are so serious about "No Child Left Behind," then I think we need to adopt a policy for school bus drivers. Just think of it! All those yellow school buses with school names in black lettering...and just below it, NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND in red lettering, all caps. Just in case anyone in society might, for a moment, forget the new school bus initiative.

Bus drivers would have an impossibly long list of outcomes that they needed to achieve each day. Maybe each day they could post a sign near their big mirror stating what the children were going to learn on their way to school each day. Before a kid could get off the bus, he or she would have to show mastery of that outcome. Some sample outcomes might be (1) learns not to smoke in the back seats, (2) remembers all personal items when departing, (3) stays seated whenever the bus is moving, etc.

Of course, the ultimate goal of this initiative would involve (obviously) not leaving any children behind. Therefore, bus drivers would have to carefully take attendance as children got on the bus. If a child was not there, the bus driver would need to get off the bus, go to the child's house, and follow up concerning why the child was not on the bus. Of course, the schedule would still need to be maintained so that the other children on the bus would still make it to school on time.

I think it's a brilliant plan to improve education. After all, what's the use of "not leaving them behind" in the classroom if we're leaving them behind at the bus stop?