"NCLB has taken away the time for kindergarteners to learn and practice essential getting-along skills that will help them in their educational and their working careers. We have had to decrease free time and recess in order to instruct the students in all the language arts areas. We are expected to have the children reading and able to decode words before they leave kindergarten. These children are being deprived of opportunities to experience give and take, to understand one another's point of view, to play and work cooperatively.

"Individual schools are under pressure from the district, and the districts from the state, and the state from the capital, to get all children to the same place at the same time.

"Due to the push-push-push attitude, we are killing student spirit and creativity. Where a student may take time to understand and further explore a concept, we are forced to stop on that topic and move on. Not all of us look the same, act the same, behave the same, come from the same home, or have the same experiences. School is a time when we offer experiences that help put students on the same playing field. We are dampening their spirits and not allowing them to grow and blossom, to be the best they can be. I worry that these pressures are stifling our children, our future leaders."

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