Remember the song “School Days,” that gave us the phrase “reading, and writing and arithmetic?” Some kids are now bored with these staples that we have come to expect in education, creating a demand on teaching methods that cannot be easily addressed. 

Kids who enter kindergarten already knowing how to read find learning the basics to be boring, and their parents want to them to be further challenged.  This story of success in Portland’s schools also highlights the clouds under the silver lining.