How I was saved by No Child Left Behind

Reform programs such as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind have their share of critics, but they also have strong supporters: stakeholders who appreciate quantifiable results, parents who can measure their children’s education, and students whose entire life paths can change simply by moving to a higher-achieving school.

That was what happened for Kyle Tabuena-Frolli. He’s a summer volunteer here at KALW, and he has this commentary on how he personally benefited from No Child Left Behind.

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KYLE TABUENA-FROLLI: I never understood why my teachers were always bashing the No Child Left Behind Act because, according to my mom, George Bush is single-handedly responsible for my entire education.

In order to get just how much the No Child Left Behind Act helped me, there are two things you have to know about the school system I was raised in.

Number one: all schools are not created equal. Ask any parent, any student, any teacher. They can name which schools in the neighborhood are “good” and which are not. And “good” and “bad” can mean a lot of things here: high or low test scores, many or few extracurriculars, the number of little gangsters running around. My school was chosen for me – James Lick High School, right down the street.

GLORIA TABUENA-FROLLI: Even though James Lick was closer, the scores that were coming out of there, the API scores...

That stands for Advanced Perfomance Index scores.

GLORIA TABUENA-FROLLI: ...were so low. And I knew the demographic wasn’t as academically robust as Independence was.

Independence was another high school in my district.

And that brings me to the second thing you need to know about my school system: Once a parent knows her kid is in danger of “low test scores and little gangsters,” she will try anything to get her baby out of that situation.

GLORIA TABUENA-FROLLI: I just wanted you to be with higher competition.

As far as my mom saw it, James Lick bad, Independence good.

Enter the summer scramble of 2005.

The moment I took off my eighth-grader mortarboard, my mom began to panic about which high school I was going to in the fall. She looked at Independence High. It had a pretty robust newspaper, a score of AP classes and a ton of clubs I could join.

James Lick, not so much.

Then, my mom discovered an invaluable loophole to get me transferred, and it came from President Bush.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: By giving families with children stuck in low-performing schools the opportunity to choose some place better, we can raise student achievement.

It was like he was speaking directly to her. And after a flurry of paperwork and personal appeal letters to the district offices, it happened. I was in. Independence here I come.

GLORIA TABUENA-FROLLI: I just wanted you get used to being a small fish in a big pond, rather than the other way around. So you would really have to really try hard to get to the level that, you know, you’re fighting for college.

And I was challenged. The newspaper, the cross country team and the AP’s – they were everything I needed. And by the time I got to USC four years later, I was ready. Top marks in my 100-person classes, chasing L.A. stories for my journalism classes. I was totally that small fish, and I loved it.

I don’t know exactly what would have happened if I’d gone to James Lick. But I know I wouldn’t have had the chances I got at Independence.

My mom’s about as liberal as they come, but she took advantage of an opportunity President Bush helped create, which has left me secretly thanking the president for No Child Left Behind.

Kyle Tabuena-Frolli is a volunteer in KALW’s news department. After graduating from Independence High, Tabuena-Frolli went on to attend the University of Southern California – where he returns for his third year in just a couple weeks.