Forgive me while I step on my soap box for a minute

I was listening to an NPR story on No Child Left Behind today. This whole thing just annoys me. I may be completely off base, but from my experiences over the past 8 years, we can test and teach and work to motivate the kids until our fingers are bleeding, but the real focus needs to be changing the views of the families. I strongly believe that it is the parental views that shape kids lives so much more than a teacher or a national program. Yes, there are youth that we can make an impact on, and those are the ones that we enthusiastically guide through their teen years, but for that one kid, I feel that there are 2-3 others that don't want help or don't want to change or who are going to fight the system no matter how empathetic or how supportive I am. Rather than spending all this money on forcing the kids to take test upon test, I would much rather see my tax dollars be spent on early intervention programs and early childhood programs. If we can get families and students thinking seriously about college and their future at an early age, it is going to have a much greater impact then me trying to completely change 14 years of mindset in a stubborn teen.