Myth: No Child Left Behind has a pie-in-the-sky notion that schools alone can eliminate all social and class distinctions.

This myth is fairly widespread.  It was reinforced recently on National Public Radio's Weekend Edition when a speaker was asked by host Ray Suarez, “How can schools guarantee that by 2014 there won’t be any social or class distinctions among children in terms of educational outcomes?”  The speaker’s reply was, “There is no way that schools can eliminate – which is what the law requires – the achievement gap between children of different social classes by 2014.” 
            Hearing that No Child Left Behind requires the end to all class distinctions despite the continuation of unequal health care, unequal housing, unequal nutrition, and unequal job opportunities, the ordinary person could be excused for concluding that No Child Left Behind is unrealistic, leaning to the utopian.
            But No Child Left Behind doesn’t say that schools will eliminate all social and class distinctions. What it says is that schools have an obligation to educate all children no matter what their family background and that children of all backgrounds should at the very least meet a baseline of proficiency in reading, math, and science. That doesn’t mean that some children won’t exceed those standards – in fact, many children should be exceeding standards. But it should mean that schools stop graduating children who cannot read, write, and compute.
            No Child Left Behind’s goal, in other words, is fairly modest. Establish standards for what every child should know and be able to do and then make sure that every child (with exceptions for children with severe cognitive disabilities) knows and is able to do those things. And don’t make exceptions for poor children or children of color or most kids with disabilities.
            An ordinary person could be excused for thinking that there must be more to it – that you shouldn’t need a federal law to tell schools something so basic. But schools have heard for so long that it is impossible to educate poor children to standards that many teachers and principals gave up expecting poor children to learn to multiply in third grade and divide in fourth.
            No Child Left Behind essentially tells schools that they can’t give up on poor children and children of color and children with disabilities.
            There are many schools out there that have not given up on children and have managed to make sure that all their children meet state standards. One example is East Millsboro Elementary in Delaware, which has no gap in rates of performance between its poor and non-poor children – and all groups outperform the rest of the state not only in math and reading but science and social studies. East Millsboro was profiled in the last issue of Alliance Alert.

To see the story on East Millsboro, click here.