Editorial

 The 1938 Hurricane and No Child Left Behind 

This summer marks 65 years since the Great Hurricane of 1938:  perhaps the worst natural disaster ever to hit the East Coast. The nascent National Weather Service being what it was back then, a Florida weatherman named the storm a “hurricane,” and expected it to cause disaster there. A Washington weatherman ignored the Florida warning and downgraded it to a “storm”.

When all Hell broke loose, the entire Northeast was taken by surprise. Tidal waves up to 80 feet high wiped away vacation homes from Long Island through New England. Flood tides welled up and strangled major Northeastern cities. They were even scraping salt off the windows near Lake Champlain – salt blown there from the ocean by the unexpected storm.

I don’t know if the No Child Left Behind legislation which took effect January 1, 2002, has put us in a similar situation, but, as this issue of “The Journal” should make clear, the “sneak attack” many people didn’t notice two years ago, seems to have brought with it a hundred unexpected ramifications – mostly for school administrators who are saddled with the responsibility of “compliance.”

Professional organizations and journals around the country have only lately begun disseminating and discussing NCLB, and so “The Journal” does the same in our current issue. Does this mean that the Republican Bush administration slipped “Public Aid to Private Education” through in the aftermath of 9-11? Does this mean that Big Government Democrats overpowered the Small Government people Republicans? Does this mean you should or should not vote for someone or someone else in the next election?

I have no idea.

However, “The Journal” thinks there is an awful lot of speculation around about the ramifications of this legislation for administrators, and that you should know about it. Wherever possible, as we surf the educational websites and journals, we have included Internet addresses. And whatever reactions you would like to share them with your fellow ESSAA members, we urge you to share it with them in upcoming issues.

Sixty-five years ago, what was expected to be a simple storm, ended up flooding the Main Streets of a thousand American cities, towns, and villages, and it took five years to clean up the mess. Washington didn’t call it right then, and the people paid for it. Let’s hope this isn’t happening again.

R.A.L.