School Law

I have started my next class on the road to my masters!
We read about NCLB last week and this week the various cases about student expression and free speech.
NCLB..... hmmm I have never taught without the legislation, but I do know that each year more stuff is handed down to us. I am a 5th grade math/science teacher and the fact that my kids are in an SSI grade is hugely important. Since they took SSI out of 3rd grade reading, this puts our grade as the first time there is a stop-gap in place. Parents and students are extremely nervous and teachers are extremely stressed.
On our campus there is almost a zero retention policy, so when they get to us, I can have kids with 3 years gap in math. We have just started Tier II for math and that has left us with huge holes to fill every year. I get frustrated when the walk into my classroom and cannot do the work. It is not the kids that I am frustrated with, but the system. I have sent at least 4 kids onto middle school that are totally unprepared and are now failing because I was told that keeping them in 5th grade makes them at risk or dropping out. I have done the research and sending them to Middle school unprepared makes them pretty much a guaranteed drop out. If they cannot keep up, they will get retained at some point and the later they are retained, the more likely they are to drop out.
I am glad we are now implementing Tier II in math, but there has been VERY LITTLE training on it. I have been in the developmental stage of RTI before and it is a struggle to get all on board. I feel we are leaving many children behind even with federal law because there are so many loop holes to get around the retention points. Parents, principals (most likely guiding the process) and teachers can all say, "send them on " and off they go our next group of drop outs.