MythBuster

Some people blame No Child Left Behind for actively harming “gifted” children. But where’s the evidence?

It's Being Done

M. Hall Stanton in North Philadelphia was once the subject of a searing documentary about the failure and futility of urban education. Now the school has higher proficiency rates than the rest of the state. Stanton is as dramatic a story of school improvement as exists in the nation.

The Achievement Alliance
The Achievement Alliance was founded to provide accurate,
non-partisan information about student achievement and
No Child Left Behind. It is a project of the following
organizations:
Business Roundtable
Citizens Commission on Civil Rights
Education Trust
National Center for Educational Accountability
National Council of La Raza

What's New

The federal education budget contains a lot of bad news and one little kernel of good news; Education Week concludes that high standards, good assessments, and coherent accountability lead to higher student achievement; Education Trust documents the continued gap in funding between poor and rich school districts; and a new literacy survey indicates that young adults seem to be less literate than their parents. Also, as a special bonus, Samuel Freedman writes about Bill Taylor from the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights in The New York Times and Ross Wiener from Education Trust writes about teacher quality in The Washington Post.

Other Voices

The achievement gap between boys and girls from The New Republic; the effect of expectations from The American School Board Journal; and what kids want from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.