On a tour of Tsinghua [University’s]'s main library, I came upon one of many crowded reading rooms, this one so long that the side walls seemed to converge in the distance, as in an art school exercise in perspective. A center aisle divided two ranks of library tables receding down the long vista, eight seats at each table, almost every seat occupied by a student deep in study, at least 400 silently absorbed in books, writing in notebooks.

There lay the future: focused, determined, intense, inevitable.

Many informed observers know what that image of the Tsinghua reading room portends. But do the American people? From Fall Creek School to MIT, do our students understand that they must work at least as long, as hard and as smartly as their Chinese peers if we are to maintain a viable place in the economy of a Chinese century? Can they? Will they?

If only the image of that Tsinghua reading room could be our Sputnik. Can we respond as rapidly and as well as we did to that earlier challenge? How comforting it would be to know that we can. But unease and urgency, not comfort, are what we need most right now.

—Daniel Mark Fogel, president, University of Vermont, “In Search of a Sputnik moment,” The Washington Post, October 18, 2005

Teachers at the Milton Elementary School say they're seeing encouraging signs of improvement, now that the school is taking steps to respond to shortcomings found under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Kindergarten teacher Cheryl King says she was initially skeptical about a new phonics-based program called Fundations. But she said her students are moving much more quickly toward literacy than those in her past classes.

"I'm a believer," King said.

The school was required to come up with an action plan after two consecutive years in which the poorest students -- those who receive lunch for free or at reduced cost -- failed to meet goals on standardized tests in reading and writing.
Only 36 percent of students from low-income families met second-grade proficiency standards; 76 percent of better-off students did so….

Kerry Sewell, the school's instructional leader, said he sees flaws in the No Child Left Behind law, but agrees with its goals.

"It has clearly raised the level of dialogue within the profession and outside it about the need for high expectations and the need for all kids to reach their potential," he said.

The Burlington Free Press October 16, 2005

Ricki Sabia began volunteering to help children with disabilities when she was in high school on Long Island. She went to college at Georgetown University and law school at the University of Maryland. When her second son, Stephen, was born in 1992 with Down syndrome, her youthful interest became a major focus of her life. She tried to do what she could to improve services for children with disabilities in Montgomery County, where she lived with Stephen, her older son David and her husband Peter, a cardiologist.

It was often a struggle and led her to appreciate an unexpected ally, the federal No Child Left Behind law.

It is a messy process, trying to improve schools with a federal law, and there are parts of No Child Left Behind that do not make much sense. But when parents who have struggled to find the right teachers for their children say the law has helped them do that, it is worth listening to them, and making certain that when the Congress and the bureaucracy try to adjust the law, they don't remove those pieces that work best.

—Jay Mathews, “Class Struggle,” The Washington Post, October 11, 2005