Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz is outraged over the fact that neighborhood sixth grade students from the Riverdale/Kingsbridge Academy are missing classes almost every day through no fault of their own. Under the Federal law known as the No Child Left Behind Act, local students are in fact being left behind.

The school bus, which picks up students in northern Riverdale (who live within the zone of the school,) begins its route in Queens. It then proceeds to Manhattan before making its way into our community. The Federal law allows children from failing schools to attend any public school within the city that they chose. This has caused controversy already since local children who may not have registered for school early may not have a seat in their local school if students from other neighborhoods (or in this case other boroughs) have already filled the school to capacity.

Every day of the first week of school students missed home room as well as their first period of the day due to the bus arriving late. On some occasions the bus has arrived after 9 a.m. when the children should arrive at school by 8:20 a.m.

"No Child Left Behind has caused far more harm than good in our community. I am appalled that some of our local students have been missing classes because their school bus starts their route in Queens, then goes into Manhattan before arriving at its first stop in Riverdale," said Dinowitz.

No Child Left Behind has led to overcrowding in many better performing schools throughout the City. Some teachers have filed grievances with the Department of Education due to the fact that their class sizes are above the contractual limit.

"We must do everything we can to raise academic performance in failing schools. But the solution to the problems in our failing schools is not to create problems in the better performing schools. It’s a copout for our policy to be to move children around the City like pieces on a chessboard rather than addressing the problems in their schools in the first place. Our children are literally being left behind because of yet another misguided so-called reform," concluded Dinowitz.