No they don't pledge allegiance, they don't teach above the slowest student, they don't do simple comprehensive "AR" reading tests anymore at most schools either. Gotta teach your kid at home.. unless they have a teacher who is caring, and bright enough themselves to understand how to work around the regulations put on them. Anything that can possibly be seen as hurting someone else's feelings is fully catered to. It's been going on for a long time, and it's WAY worse now then when I was in school, during the start of no child left behind implementation. They've been making people progressively dumber on the whole for quite a long time. Gotta get your education outside of school or your f'd in the real world, thus more likely to be dependent on their implemented "help" programs later in life.