text: I do believe you need a balance.. but if we would be smarter about what we do with our military we wouldn't need as large of a standing military... then we could put money back into the nation to fix our schools and help better the social issues we face, as well as advance sciences.. including those that would help protect this nation without the loss of human life (or at least limit it)... but that would be the best thing to do for our nation as opposed to our politicians.. so don't expect it to happen :(\n\n\ncynthiatweedle- Not trying to knock your intentions.. but the no child left behind program is a fraud.. it sounds great but it's not.. the "numbers" they used to try and make it look good only focused on the top 50% of the children in the schools it was piloted in and there was some improvement in those children... but in the schools as a whole there was marked worsening.. the drop out rate and test scores were much worse than they were before it was piloted in Texas.   Coordinated School Health is a much better program if you are looking for something for your schools... in the schools that have used it the drop out rates have fallen from in the 20%'s to less than 1% and the teen pregnancy rates and arrest rates have shown the same decline.  It is very similar to the School of the 21st Century program which has also shown some great results.