Sorry, this entry will become preachy. Be warned.
Each fall I like to get an amaryllis bulb for the circulation desk. I keep it in the fridge until Christmas, then take it to school with me in January. Within a few weeks it produces a showstopping display of giant red trumpety flowers . It’s fun to watch, and it’s a bit of indoor nature during a dreary time of year.
This year I did all that. We watched and waited; we named her Amy. A tiny sliver of green peeked out of the bulb, but that was it. After about a month, there was still nothing more. People began to laugh at Amy, calling her a dud. I took her back home in disgrace, leaving her to sulk in a corner of my kitchen.
Then, some time in mid-April, I realized Amy had gotten a little bit bigger. The green sliver was maybe a half inch long. She was awake! 
Over the next couple of weeks, she grew as much as an inch a day. I took her back to school, where people began to stop by just to see her. And in the first week of May, Amy bloomed.
Now, everybody had something nice to say about her. She was gorgeous. She was a superstar. The Christmas flower that bloomed in May.
But here’s the thing. Amaryllis bulbs are like us. We’re all different, and we’re unpredictable and ornery and full of untold promise. We don’t bloom on schedule either. Children are not ready to walk or teethe or say their first words at exactly the same time. They also don’t learn to read, or write cursive, or factor trinomials at the same pace either.
Yet that’s what NCLB says they have to do. Every child on the same page on the same day all over the country. Identical little widgets cranked out in the great factories of our public schools.
If we can’t make a flower bulb do it, how in the world are we supposed to make children do it?
