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Chapter 1

A New American Revolution

“What does it mean to be an American? Well, to me, it means that no matter who you are or how many problems you have, in America, everybody has a chance.”

—Fourth-Grade African-American Student

A revolution is occurring in public education, and it has generated dramatic changes in our nation’s schools and classrooms. This revolution is shattering attitudes and beliefs that have existed for decades and focusing national attention on the need to educate all students effectively. With a high-quality education, almost anyone, regardless of race, gender, social class, or national origin, can gain access to economic prosperity and security. Without an adequate education, the promise of prosperity and security that is the foundation of a democratic society is out of reach. Without a high-quality education, a person can live in the richest nation on earth yet lack adequate job opportunities, housing, and health benefits, and he or she can too easily fall victim to crime, addiction, abuse, and other dangerous behavior. A high-quality education has become so vital that it is now viewed as an essential and guaranteed civil right.

The culture of K–12 public education established long ago is changing in remarkable ways. Local control of schools is being transformed through federal and state policies and sanctions. The old process of sorting students into general education, college preparatory, and vocational tracks—the standard in most of the world’s developed nations—has been supplemented by policy-driven mandates for minimal student achievement proficiencies and is giving way to a system designed to provide a single rigorous curriculum for all students. “Slow-learning” tracks and “acceptable dropout rates” are being replaced with the goal of all students meeting proficiency standards and graduating. Bell-curve evaluations are being replaced with mastery learning. Freelance teaching based on textbooks, teacher interest, and personal prerogative is being set aside by a system of carefully planned, aligned, and prescribed instruction. However, as the traditional philosophies that have governed public education for so long have begun to change, remnants of their failed policies will likely linger for some time. While more blatant school sorting practices are being challenged and increasingly eliminated, others, like assigning each student a “class rank,” still reflect the bell-curve mentality and are not likely to vanish anytime soon. We are rapidly leaving the old world of education behind and being swept into a new world driven by an emerging science of teaching and learning, dramatic changes in the economic marketplace and technology, and new state and federal legislation and policies. This educational revolution is unprecedented in the history of our civilization. Has any nation, anywhere and at any time, truly been determined to leave no child behind?

Education’s transformation into an essential and guaranteed civil right has not happened by chance. It has emerged through a long and turbulent history of social protests and educational policy, from the denial of education to a variety of under-represented and disadvantaged groups, to segregated and “separate but equal” education, to equal opportunity and education for all, and finally to the goal of academic proficiency for all children and youth. The American Association of School Administrators has illustrated this journey to academic proficiency for every student by identifying key milestones of the past two centuries (figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1: Milestones in American Public Education (American Association of School Administrators, 2004)

The Struggle for Education

The recognition of education as a civil right essential for economic opportunity did not happen overnight. For close to 200 years, policymakers and educators have slowly taken significant steps in the often tortuous struggle toward educational freedom for all citizens. This journey has progressed from access to education for only the advantaged, where many groups were denied educational opportunities, to the expectation of proficiency for all. Those denied the right to an education included African Americans, Latinos, and other minorities; the poor; women; the handicapped; people living in isolated, rural areas; and many others. These transformations in public education have been accomplished through a long history of social strife.

From Exclusion to Access

Beginning in the mid-1800s, states began to enact legislation and policies designed to provide access to “universal” public education. Access to elementary education for all was slowly enacted in the United States, first in Massachusetts, and then in scattered locations along the East Coast. But even in states where policies were established for educational access, the vast majority of children were too often unable to participate. Even into the early 1900s, few students attended school beyond the elementary level. At that time, more than 9 out of 10 children failed to graduate from high school. By the late 1950s, the dropout rate was still at least 50% (Education Commission of the States, 1998).

Segregated and Separate but Equal

Although the end of the Civil War marked the freeing of slaves in the United States, southern states continued to deny civil rights to African Americans—including the right to effective education—though the creation of Jim Crow laws. Among other things, these laws established a poll tax and literacy tests for voting. In addition, they denied African Americans the right to participate in a fully integrated society by denying them open housing, by segregating them in poor neighborhoods, and by restricting their access to public transportation, city parks, swimming pools, restaurants, many forms of entertainment, and other services.

In 1954, the court case of Brown v. Topeka Board of Education seemed to finally make the dream of equal education for all a reality; however, 2 years later, federal troops were required to protect nine African-American students in Little Rock, Arkansas, as they enrolled in all-white Central High School. In the early 1960s, James Meredith became the first African American to enroll at the University of Mississippi, and civil rights demonstrations continued to sweep across the South. By the early 1970s, federal courts increasingly ordered school desegregation in the major cities of America.

Equal Opportunity and Education for All

Soon after Lyndon Johnson became president in 1963, he launched his War on Poverty. A significant portion of this legislation was the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This landmark legislation established the goal of equal access and treatment for poor and minority students and supported these students with a variety of compensatory programs such as Title I.

By the mid-1970s, separate but equal was finally giving way to a national policy of equal education for all, and new legislation began to ensure the equal treatment of female students in public education. The Title IX section regarding female students was added to ESEA and began a massive realignment of educational programs and funding for young women that continues today. Following the legislation and court decisions that opened access and opportunity to females was the Education for All Handicapped Children Act passed by Congress in 1974, which sought to end the segregation of handicapped students by providing them with equal access and opportunity.

Despite this long struggle to provide equal educational access and opportunity for the poor, minorities, female students, and the handicapped, even into the year 2000, researchers have continued to document schools that still use the destructive practices of segregation and isolation of poor and minority students. School districts have redrawn boundaries to establish school attendance zones that isolate poor and minority neighborhoods; ability grouping and tracking programs have been used to segregate poor and minority students within schools. “White flight”—when middle-class and affluent families sell their homes in cities and relocate to suburbia—exacerbates this problem. Poor children have been isolated into second-class facilities with insufficient and outdated instructional materials, where they are far more likely to be taught by inexperienced, inadequately prepared, or misassigned teachers. Inner-city schools have thus been largely abandoned to poor and minority students, leaving our nation’s schools more segregated by race and socioeconomic status today than before federal desegregation policies went into effect.

Sadly, educational research in the mid-1960s provided an intellectual rationale for the continued use of these destructive school practices. James Coleman of the University of Chicago conducted the largest educational study to date, gathering data from 600,000 students, 60,000 teachers, and 6,000 schools. He concluded that teachers could only impact about 10% of the effects of poverty (Coleman et al., 1966). Although Coleman’s conclusion was later disproved, the flawed research led to more than 3 decades of destructive school practices that stigmatized the neediest of our children and youth and created a growing underclass of Americans who are undereducated, illiterate, underemployed, or, even worse, unemployable.

A New Standard of Excellence: Academic Proficiency for All

In the late 1990s, as state and federal legislators began to recognize the relationship between education, civil rights, and economic justice, they began to transform the policy of equal opportunity in education into the new expectation of academic proficiency for all students. Pressure from state and federal agencies coupled with a growing realization that all children and youth can achieve high academic excellence have fostered this unprecedented change in public education. Starting in Kentucky, Texas, Colorado, and North Carolina, state legislatures began establishing policies about learning standards, achievement proficiency, and consequences for failure. With the enactment of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation in 2002, the United States became the first nation to establish a national goal of all students attaining proficiency in reading, math, and science. This elevation of education from something available to only a few to a civil right that is absolutely essential has been fueled by two powerful and relatively new forces: changes in the economic marketplace and the emerging science of teaching and learning.

The Changing Economic Marketplace

The first development driving the new American revolution has been the changing economic marketplace. The economic marketplace has changed in four significant ways:

1. The world of work has given way to the “age of the mind.”

2. There is an ever-growing demand for new skills.

3. New technology continues to develop.

4. The relationship between education and income is becoming increasingly significant.

From the World of Work to the Age of the Mind

In today’s world, there is only one door of opportunity to the good life: education. The old concept of hard work and perseverance has been transformed by the technological revolution. The world of work is transforming into the “age of the mind.” Jobs that previously employed millions of upwardly mobile but largely uneducated men and women in the United States have all but disappeared. Industrial robots and other forms of technology have replaced many of these laborers. Those jobs that are available typically pay only minimum wage, provide little or no health benefits, and are often filled by new immigrants to the country. Many other manufacturing jobs have been transferred to foreign countries where labor, insurance, and litigation costs are far lower.

The Demand for New Skills

Even jobs traditionally seen as requiring less-specialized skills and training, such as jobs in construction, food services, and retail industries, now usually require detailed, often expensive training and licensure. Almost all jobs require a working knowledge of computer technology. More and more jobs require a high school education and postsecondary training programs. Most branches of the American military will not accept young men and women recruits with a GED. In community colleges, many vocational/technical associate degree programs require calculus as an admission requirement. Associate degree programs in sheet metal and tool and die training now require algebra and trigonometry. Today, business, industry, and the armed forces have no opportunities for dropouts.

New Jobs Require Greater Education and Skills

 Eighty percent of the 30 fastest growing jobs will require an education beyond high school.

 Thirty-six percent of all new jobs will require at least a bachelor’s degree.

(Hecker, 2005)

Continuing Technological Development

The evolution of increasingly sophisticated job skills demands higher student competencies, and the only technological certainty is that we will experience more change. Public school students must not only master high levels of academic proficiency and complex technological skills, but must also build a sufficiently strong educational foundation for ongoing development so that they can continue to explore and learn for the rest of their lives.

The Relationship Between Education and Income

In recent decades, there has been a growing understanding of the relationship between salary and education that further supports the role of education as an individual’s civil right. The best way to predict lifetime income levels—to predict those who will live their lives in poverty and those who will enjoy the benefits of the middle class—is education level. Without sufficient education, there is little or no hope for a stable economic life (figure 1.2, p. 7).

Figure 1.2: Predicted Yearly Income Based on Educational Level (National Center for Education Statistics, 2002, p. 163)

American workers without an adequate education are underemployed, work for minimum wage, often hold two or three part-time jobs, or are unemployed or unemployable. Many of these poverty-level adults may decline into depression and despair and fall victim to drug and alcohol abuse, dysfunctional family life, and socially unacceptable behavior. Large numbers turn to crime and end up in jails and prisons. The number of men and women in prison in the United States has doubled in the past 20 years. For decades, over 80% of prison inmates in the United States have been dropouts; well over 50% are illiterate (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1999). In addition, the cost of public education’s failures is high:

 The cost of retaining one child is $6,500 per grade (Shepard & Smith, 1990).

 The cost of special education services per child is $9,369 per year (National Education Association, 2006).

 The cost of lost taxes, lost wages, and lost productivity over their lifetimes will “cost our nation more than $260 billion” (Spellings, 2005).

As the economic marketplace of the world has changed in both developed and developing nations, there is an ever-growing disparity between those who have high-quality education and those who do not. Today the differences that characterize and separate the various social classes are more and more dramatic. Simultaneously, the wealth of the most affluent nations has soared to unparalleled heights while a growing “underclass” of citizens living in poverty has suffered declining economic opportunities. The rich have become richer and the poor poorer. The result is an “apartheid of ignorance” where education is the key factor that separates the rich from the poor, economic opportunity from economic despair, and the good life from the tragic world of the “other America.” Those who are well-educated have access to the richest economic system that the world has ever known. For those who lack education, the door of opportunity is slammed shut. The apartheid of ignorance has become an unavoidable reality in the United States.

An Emerging Science of Teaching and Learning

The second development driving the new American revolution in education is the emergence of a sophisticated research base for teaching and learning. After hundreds of years with little more than philosophy and theory as the foundation for teaching and learning, research has suddenly provided a strong and growing structure to guide the field of education. Perhaps the most important of these insights are the conclusions of research on schools where poor and minority students have been learning effectively. This research provides new understanding about how schools can effectively address the most challenging task in public education: teaching the vast numbers of our nation’s children who live in poverty. There is a growing consensus that underachieving poor children of any ethnic background can achieve high standards of academic excellence and break the cycle of poverty.

This research base includes a variety of specific areas of inquiry. Perhaps most important is the neuroscience research and research on human growth and development. Neuroscience research has provided an understanding of the conditions that encourage and support learning, as well as those conditions that make learning next to impossible. Neuroscience research has helped to identify everything from infant bonding and conditioning, to parenting techniques, to personality development, to effective classroom strategies.

There has also been important longitudinal research that has followed preschool and elementary children for more than 30 years. These longitudinal studies, particularly in the fields of early childhood education and learning disabilities, have helped to identify the long-term impacts of effective and ineffective school practices, permitting long-term analysis of the cost effectiveness of various educational programs and practices. In addition, there is a growing database of knowledge emerging from the research on resilient youth, violent youth, the relationship between teen risk behavior and health costs, and factors in the home, community, and schools that can predict both positive and negative attitudes and school success. There has also been substantial research on instructional and classroom management strategies, effective reform models, leadership, and ways that high-poverty schools reverse trends of low performance. The compelling conclusions from this research give us the ability to make long- and short-range predictions with a high degree of accuracy regarding teaching, learning, and the influence of educational policy on underachieving students of poverty.

As a result of the unprecedented educational research of the last decade, a number of major conclusions have emerged:

All Children Will Learn

We know with absolute certainty that all children and youth will learn and achieve acceptable standards of academic excellence and school success, even children who are poor, non–English speaking, and learning disabled.

Schools Make a Difference

Recent research has disproved Coleman’s conclusions that poverty has such a negative, pervasive impact on children and youth that schools can have little or no positive effect on these students’ education. Today, thousands of schools serving poor, at-risk students report academic levels similar to those of middle-class and upper-class students. It is now evident that a good school can overcome the debilitating effects of poverty and dysfunctional family life.

Teachers Make a Difference

Research has shown that teacher quality is the single most influential factor in student achievement. It is not surprising that some teachers can significantly raise student achievement while other teachers have little or no positive impact on student success. This is a crucial finding because many students actually show a decline in achievement over the course of the school year. It takes 2 years for these students with ineffective teachers to regain the resulting loss in achievement. If a student has an ineffective teacher for 2 years in a row, she or he is unlikely to ever catch up (Sanders & Rivers, 1996).

Immediate Gains Are Possible

Research has clearly identified instructional strategies, targeted programs, interventions, and exemplary models that ensure that low-performing students accelerate their learning and achievement. With appropriate action, schools and classrooms can expect immediate, dramatic results.

Best Practices Work for At-Risk Students

There is growing evidence that poor and minority students can learn effectively when research-based best practices are used in schools and in the classroom (Barr & Parrett, 2003). When schools replace the failed practices of the “pedagogy of poverty” (drills, worksheets, and lectures) with research-based strategies, learning increases significantly, especially for the children of poverty. Research has identified very specific classroom strategies that will significantly increase student achievement when used correctly.

Low-Performing Schools Can Become High-Performing Schools

Throughout the United States, a growing number of high-poverty, low-performing schools have become high-performing schools. By employing research on effective schools and best practices for low-performing and other at-risk students, and by monitoring student performance, these schools have transformed student learning in dramatic ways.

These proven strategies identified by researchers give educators the ability to make accurate long-term predictions about student learning. Today, we know, without a shadow of doubt, that all kids can and will learn; however, this knowledge must be put into action, or children will be left behind.

The Continuing Battle in Education

The changes in the economic marketplace and the emerging education research have motivated policymakers and lawmakers to conclude that all children and youth must be taught effectively and achieve high academic proficiency. This does not, however, mean that social and political battles have ceased. Rather, the new educational policy of No Child Left Behind has catapulted the nation into the next great battle for civil rights in America. The No Child Left Behind Act has suddenly focused the spotlight on the effectiveness of America’s schools in teaching the children of poverty. New requirements for student subgroups, data reporting, adequate yearly progress, and teacher quality have refocused the efforts of every school and school district in the United States and generated an effort toward school improvement and reform that is unparalleled in America’s history.

Challenges of the Educational Revolution: Policy Change, Pressure, and Reactions

“I am sick of all the spin doctors’ jargon and the weak policymakers’ sleight-of-hand concoction that is being called ‘Leave No Child Behind.’ It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that what they are talking about is ‘dumbing down’ public education.”

—Parent, California

Like any revolution, the transition occurring in public education is charged with conflict, confusion, confrontation, and in some cases, chaos. The good news is that in schools, districts, and communities across the country, many parents, policymakers, and educators have embraced this dramatic new educational challenge and are working diligently to ensure that all students, especially poor and minority students, are learning effectively. Unfortunately, despite the overwhelming support of this policy, some believe the No Child Left Behind Act will blaze for a while and then burn out and disappear. The first impulse of many educators is to be patient and simply wait out this new intrusion into their schools and classrooms. It is no surprise that a policy shift of this magnitude has spawned a firestorm of critique and dissent and led to a variety of reactions—some positive and many negative.

Teachers

“I love my students, and I want all of them to succeed; but there is only so much a teacher can give. I have other responsibilities to my own family, my church, and my community…. Teachers do all of the work and get all of the blame.”

—Elementary School Teacher, Indiana

State and federal legislation has significantly altered the lives of teachers and the expectations for student performance in their classrooms. While many teachers enthusiastically support the concept of all students attaining proficiency, many are objecting to these new demands because of the lack of accompanying funding and support. Some teachers seem to have concluded that No Child Left Behind actually means, “No Teacher Left Standing.” Many others have welcomed the Act as long overdue and eminently necessary. For teachers and administrators who have served as advocates of poor and minority students, the federal legislation has provided a way to document school funding inequalities and failed practices, programs, and policies, and provided powerful new incentives and penalties that have focused school and community attention on teaching all students effectively.

Teacher Organizations

“The No Child Left Behind legislation sounds pretty good unless you are working in a dilapidated building with insufficient instructional materials, in classes with more than 30 kids, surrounded with a lot of tired, burned-out teachers, and little or no funding to achieve the awesome job of remediation. Is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that this is an unfunded federal mandate being carried squarely on the backs of teachers?”

—School District President, Oregon Education Association

The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers have been forceful in their critique of No Child Left Behind. These organizations have criticized the legislation for putting the focus on teachers and targeting them for all the problems in schools. Former Education Secretary Rod Paige angered teachers when, during a White House meeting with governors, he called the nation’s largest teachers union a “terrorist organization.” Paige later said he was joking but stood by his claim that the 2.7 million-member National Education Association uses “obstructionist scare tactics” to oppose education reforms (King, 2004). While steadfast in their critique of NCLB, these organizations continue to offer informed recommendations for statutory changes and amendments to improve the act.

State Departments

“Too many children begin life disadvantaged, attend poor schools, learn little, drop out in school or in college, and wind up at the margins in low-skill, low-paying jobs. We have made progress in closing the gap, but not enough…. Both research and our progress so far show that people can achieve at much higher levels.”

—New York State Commissioner of Education (Hoff, 2005, p. 23)

“Here comes No Child Left Behind … and there go states’ rights.”

—State Department Official, Utah

Several state department of education leaders have criticized the legislation as yet another unfunded federal mandate and are calling for significant changes. Others are unhappy that the federal come-lately legislation interferes with the standards and assessment policies that they have been implementing and perfecting for years. States like Texas, North Carolina, and Colorado began requiring districts to test all students and report results by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and disability years before the federal government established the No Child Left Behind policy (Chaddock, 2004). While some states’ policies and practices were far ahead of the new federal policies, more than 20 other states have requested relief from and exceptions to the legislation; yet today, most of that early opposition has dissipated. As of early 2005, only the governors of Maine, Utah, and Vermont signed bills critical of the act.

School Boards

“I am absolutely infuriated. Whatever happened to local control of public education? Whatever happened to our elected politicians resisting this encroaching federalism? What on earth is going on?”

—School Board Member, Utah

Many school board members have been shocked and angered by the federal government imposing this mandate on their district policies and practices. School boards and administrators often see No Child Left Behind as an intrusive federal effort designed to erode the authority of local boards—a directive that requires significant new accountability without adequate fiscal support. Despite these widespread concerns, most board members tend to agree with the Act’s purpose of closing achievement gaps and holding high expectations for all students.

School Districts

“This NCLB law is untenable for our small district. Who is going to do all of this accounting and paperwork? Where is the money for more staff and technology?”

—Superintendent of a Rural School District, Nebraska

Most school districts in the United States are diligently working to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind; however, it has not been easy. Early resistance and disbelief have given way to a growing resolve that the law is here to stay, that all students can indeed succeed and reach proficiency, and perhaps most important, that change must occur if we are to make required progress.

Parents

“I know we need to help our school with the kids that are furthest behind, but I don’t want to see it coming out of the resources going to my child.”

—Parent, Michigan

Parents and parent groups, especially those from middle-class and affluent families, have expressed concern with the No Child Left Behind legislation. They fear that the resources for their children will be redirected toward underachieving poor and minority students, and that closing the achievement gap means lowering expectations and standards for the most successful students. More recently, news stories have focused not only on the lack of attention provided to high-achieving students, but also on the lack of attention to average students (“Class Focus,” 2005).

When Kati Haycock, executive director of the Education Trust, meets with parents and educators around the country and challenges them to replace their schools’ inferior curriculum for underachieving, poor, and minority students with a rigorous educational program and to start assigning experienced and qualified teachers to poor schools and classrooms, she often hears the same troubling response:

If schools eliminate the general education or vocational tracks, then who will become the next generation of plumbers, electricians, maintenance personnel, chefs, customer service employees, landscape technicians, and builders? … We could probably do what you are suggesting. We could put these kids in tougher classes. We could beef up the rigor of their assignments. We could assign them some of our strongest teachers, instead of novices. But I’m thinking about the black lady who served my room service breakfast this morning [at my hotel]. She seemed so very happy. And I am only thinking, if she had gone to college for even a little while, she probably wouldn’t be so happy. (Haycock, 2003, p. 2)

Analysis of Parent Perception Shows Encouraging Results

The 36th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll showed that public school parents believe (by a margin of 2 to 1) that the No Child Left Behind legislation will improve student achievement. These findings show that No Child Left Behind is gaining support and momentum.

According to Susan L. Traiman, a proponent of No Child Left Behind and the director of Education and Workforce Policy for the Business Roundtable, “It is also encouraging that the more people know about the law, the more likely they are to favor it” (Rose & Gallup, 2004, p. 43). However, the poll found that two-thirds of the respondents still knew little about the law. As Traiman notes, their views may depend on whether they receive accurate facts or misinformation about the legislation. The language used in the poll’s questions, she believes, also has an impact and can lead to negative results; other polls have produced more positive responses, especially among African-American and Hispanic parents. Traiman notes, “I would have expected more favorable attitudes in this poll had respondents been given the facts about testing, including the percentages of students who cannot perform at even the basic level in reading and math” (p. 43).

Traiman believes that as the legislation moves all students toward proficiency, support will continue to grow from the public because No Child Left Behind supports learning in reading and math—the gateways to all other learning.

Fortunately, these reactions do not characterize the majority of parent voices in our public schools. Many other parents take exception to this thinking and suggest that class prejudice, bigotry, and institutional racism are the driving forces behind opposition to the legislation and it is about time that our schools focus on the most in-need students. Yet negative reactions do consistently appear, often providing opposition to efforts to increase educational equality and to demonstrate high academic proficiency for all students, the central purpose of No Child Left Behind.

Unfortunately, more challenges and troubling implications of the educational revolution beyond public opinion have emerged as No Child Left Behind has been implemented across the country.

Data, Dropouts, and Funding

“There is no denying that NCLB has brought some long overdue attention to the problem of educational inequality…. The problem is that what NCLB proposes to do about this inequality is woefully inadequate to the task and, in some cases, will make things worse.”

—Stan Karp (Meier & Wood, 2004, p. 64)

Attaining reliable data on the number of students who drop out of school, especially the number of poor and minority students, is a persistent challenge with No Child Left Behind. A recent report by the Urban Institute found that contrary to published reports of a national graduation rate of 85%, minority students (many of whom are poor) have little more than a 50/50 chance of earning a diploma (Swanson, 2004). The Institute also reported that nearly one-third of all students fail to graduate. “Beleaguered school officials might feel so pressured to raise test scores that pushing low-performing students out of school would seem like the best way to boost their numbers,” explained Christopher Swanson of the Urban Institute. Unfortunately, he goes on to say, “the reasons that dropouts go uncounted range from deliberate falsification of data to the genuine difficulties in tracking a student who leaves a school” (Swanson, 2004, p. 36).

Arguably one of the most insidious actions of school districts is encouraging students to drop out or altering school dropout data and reports. Suddenly, large groups of students are “transferring” to other school districts or choosing home-schooling. In some school districts, low-achieving students have been pushed to enroll in GED programs, charter schools, or other programs in an effort to remove these students from the assessment pool. Some states and school districts have established barrier tests at the fifth-, ninth-, and eleventh-grade levels. Students who fail these tests are held back. In one urban district, some students have failed the fifth-grade test three times and have consequently been retained in elementary school. Since the district’s policy prevents teenagers from attending elementary school, after 3 years in the fifth grade, the students are reassigned to the eighth grade. Inevitably, almost all of these students drop out of school. It has been estimated that as of 2004 in one of the nation’s largest urban districts, more than 50,000 students have been retained because of barrier testing policies. Most of these students will likely drop out of school and join the growing numbers of uneducated, hopeless urban American youth.

There also seems to be a growing conviction among many that if educators cannot defeat the policies of No Child Left Behind, they can obscure and distort data to protect their districts’ reputations. There have been news reports throughout the country chronicling district employees who have reputedly “massaged” data on standardized tests or employed relaxed test security to make assessment results look better. Copies of standardized tests have been secretly distributed to teachers and students, some students have been encouraged to stay home on test days, and test participation and results have been tampered with. Some leading critics of the act have actually called upon teachers and educators to practice civil disobedience and refuse to participate in the state assessments (Kohn, 2000). There have been isolated incidents where high school students have done just that.

The requirements of No Child Left Behind have significantly changed the way school districts report data, especially data regarding student achievement. For many districts that have used aggregate achievement data in the past to hide the failings of poor and minority students, the disaggregation requirements of No Child Left Behind (for various subgroups of poor, minority, and exceptional students) have shocked communities that thought their schools were the very best. “Suburban school districts didn’t expect to have schools on the watch list,” says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy in Washington, DC. “[No Child Left Behind] made them realize they are accountable for all groups” (Chaddock, 2004, p. 2). In Illinois, over 694 schools, more than half of them in affluent suburban communities, were facing No Child Left Behind sanctions in 2004, underscoring the changing economic and racial demographics throughout the United States (Chaddock, 2004).

Top Suburban Schools Hit by No Child Left Behind Sanctions

A 2004 article in the Chicago Tribune reported that many suburban schools found themselves labeled as failures for the first time when they were judged not only on school-wide scores, but also on the performance of different racial, economic, and special-education subgroups. Those schools that had one or more subgroups fail to meet state standards would be subject to penalties. Many of the suburban schools identified were associated with affluent bedroom communities, which educators say underscores the growing economic and racial diversity of their student bodies (Cohen & Banchero, 2004).

Another significant concern about No Child Left Behind is its potential to punish the nation’s weakest and most vulnerable students. Writing with emotion in Many Children Left Behind, Deborah Meier and George Wood (2004) raise serious concerns regarding the long-range impact of No Child Left Behind on poor and minority students. The authors, joined by Linda Darling-Hammond and Ted Sizer, raise legitimate concerns over historical challenges that continue to exist today: the level of funding between poor and affluent school districts, the quality of teachers in poor and affluent school districts, the lack of federal funding to support the mandates of No Child Left Behind, and the legion of complex technicalities that create obstacles to learning instead of support for improvement.

Other educators argue that without No Child Left Behind, in schools and school districts where racism and class prejudice are still rampant, no one would really care whether or not poor and minority students learned. It can be argued that the intent of No Child Left Behind—to close achievement gaps between “high- and low-performing children, especially … between minority and non-minority students … and disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers” (No Child Left Behind Act, 2002)—has drawn widespread support. Like most public policies, increased attention and refinement will undoubtedly improve the legislation over time. Key issues that must be addressed in the immediate future include:

 The equitable funding of public schools. The No Child Left Behind legislation did nothing to equalize funding between school districts or between schools in a district. Funding inequalities have led to a growing number of court cases and legislation that have transformed funding formulas in some states. Unfortunately, the problem continues to exist in far too many states.

 Fiscal support for new requirements. No Child Left Behind is an underfunded federal mandate that has caused many school districts to divert their already stretched resources in order to meet the new requirements of the law.

 Accountability methods and balanced assessment. Almost everyone worries about using a single standardized test to determine the success or failure of K–12 students. Fortunately, a growing number of states are supplementing standardized testing with an array of more authentic assessments.

 Differing state expectations and discrepant scores. While each state has implemented its own accountability plan and assessments, comparisons with National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) annual results reveals significant discrepancies between individual state results and NAEP state data, as well as performance discrepancies among states.

 High school graduation requirements. In order to achieve the goals of No Child Left Behind, many states have had to upgrade their high school graduation requirements to include a stronger emphasis on science, math, and language arts.

 The pushing-out of students. No Child Left Behind has little or no accountability or standard reporting requirements regarding the number of dropouts in a school or school district. This has led to both overt and subtle efforts by some schools and districts to persuade students to leave school; when these marginal students drop out, the test score averages go up and look better for the rest.

 Alternative routes to competency and proficiency. Addressing these challenges will strengthen public support for both the intent and outcomes of the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Growing Support for the Revolution

“We can choose to renounce NCLB, look outside our districts for excuses, wring our hands, ignore the successes around us, and shift our focus everywhere but upon ourselves and what we are or are not doing…. Every child, including every disadvantaged child, is waiting for us to make our choice.”

—Anne Loring (Haycock & Chenoweth, 2005, p. 28)

In spite of the opposition, the concepts that form the foundation of No Child Left Behind are surely here to stay. The No Child Left Behind legislation passed the House of Representatives with a 381 to 41 vote and an 87 to 10 vote in the Senate. This bipartisan support is especially unique in this day of strict party-line voting patterns in Congress. Both major political parties continue to support the concept of the legislation. And while many state departments of education and state legislators may be less than excited about federal intervention in their state educational policies, No Child Left Behind is consistent with most of the standards and assessment policies that have been established by states in recent years.

In late 2004, more than 100 African-American and Latino superintendents of major urban districts signed an open letter to President George W. Bush urging the administration to “not turn back the clock” as they voiced their support of the accountability provision of Title I: “We recognize that the goal of educating all students presents a tremendous challenge. We believe that American public education is up to the task. We add our voices to those who have stepped up to the challenge” (Education Trust, 2003a, p. 1). Stephanie Robinson, former superintendent of the Kansas City, Missouri, public schools, spoke in support of the Act:

The politicians and talking heads of the education establishment in Washington need to understand that this law is actually helping to get public education more focused on raising achievement for all students and on closing achievement gaps between groups. These superintendents thought Washington needed to hear from educators in the field who are using the accountability provisions to advance the mission of public education. (Education Trust, 2003a, p. 1)

In fact, there are thousands of schools and school districts across the country that not only have implemented the policies of the state and federal legislation, but have also established a remarkable track record of success in teaching the vast majority of their students, even underachieving poor and minority students. A growing number of low-performing schools have become high-performing schools, or “turn-around schools.” The Education Trust continues to identify thousands of elementary, middle, and high schools where poor and minority students are out-achieving 75% of their state’s more advantaged peers (2003a). Even more encouraging is that educators in virtually every school district in the country, from the largest urban setting to the smallest rural district, have a new sense of urgency to implement effective strategies to ensure that their poor and minority students learn effectively. For the first time in the history of the United States, the vast majority of schools and districts are seriously attempting to raise the performance of students who were previously assigned to slow-learning tracks and special education and to raise the performance of so many other students who arrived at school academically behind, too often failed, and subsequently dropped out of school. This new focus represents the dramatic American revolution in education.

Realizing the Revolution for the Children of Poverty

“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”

—Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)

The battle for educational civil rights is alive with enthusiasm, hope, conflict, and contradiction. For the first time, poor and minority students have become the focus of public education; from the boardrooms to our living rooms, we are watching the learning curve of our most neglected children and underachieving students advance as achievement gaps close. The educational revolution in America is unfolding in dramatic and powerful new ways, as the tragedies of the past give way to the attainable goal of high-quality education for all students. The cycle of poverty and despair that has characterized our American underclass can be halted once and for all. It is only through a high-quality education that poor and minority students can break out of the debilitating cycle of poverty and gain access to the social, political, and economic freedoms promised by our country’s most sacred documents.

It is with this goal in mind—the goal of a high-quality education for all students—that we have crafted this book for teachers, administrators, policymakers, and parents. In the pages that follow, we will identify, summarize, and analyze how schools have failed the children of poverty. Most importantly, we will identify an abundance of research-based strategies that have emerged through years of educational research. These strategies form a pattern of improvement with eight specific components that have proven successful in increasing the achievement of children of poverty in a growing number of high-performing, high-poverty schools and school districts across the United States.