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.
Chapter 2
How Schools Have Failed the Children of Poverty
“It took me a while, but I figured it out. It’s all about poverty. All of our challenges and problems center on making our system and schools work for all kids.”
—School District Professional Development Director, Oregon
The greatest challenge facing public education in the United States today is educating all students to proficiency and truly leaving no child behind. The most difficult aspect of this challenge is teaching the underachieving children of poverty. These students live on the other side of the apartheid of despair and represent a huge and growing underclass of Americans who have been locked out of the world of abundance and opportunity that characterizes America.
These students are the children of the “other America.” They live in conditions far more typical of a third world nation than what is typical of the vast majority of children and youth living in the richest nation on earth. These are the “forgotten kids”—the disadvantaged, disconnected, and dislocated. Their parents have little education and often work several low-paying jobs, still unable to make ends meet. They are often without adequate health care, nutrition, housing, and clothing. They experience little educational stimulation outside of school. They do not have computers, calculators, encyclopedias, books, and magazines; most do not have even pencils and paper. Many arrive at school with significant deficiencies in their vocabulary and reading readiness and are far behind their more advantaged classmates. Without enormous attention and intervention, they fall even further behind. Few will ever catch up, and most will drop out of school. The children of poverty often comprise a significant portion of a school’s enrollment, and their only hope for escaping the cycle of poverty is a high-quality education.
The great promise to all U.S. citizens has always been freedom and justice for all and the right to a free public education. Unfortunately, vast numbers of poor and disadvantaged minority students in our nation have not realized this promise. The reality for them is freedom and justice for some and the right to an inferior public school education. Far too often, schools have blamed poor families for their children’s deficiencies and have in effect waged war against our neediest students.
Poverty in
