Jackson Free Press

OK, this is just what I was talking about at the end of my recent column, "For These Are All Our Children": A new Harvard study is finding that 'No Child Left Behind' is benefitting white kids more than kids of color—as certain schools are allowed to negotiate around the requirements of NCLB. (See Barbour's efforts to give "good" schools "home rule.") This stinks, people. Racism is becoming much more sophisticated these days.

BOSTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind education policy has in some cases benefited white middle-class children over blacks and other minorities in poorer regions, a Harvard University study showed on Tuesday. Political compromises forged between some states and the federal government have allowed schools in some predominantly white districts to dodge penalties faced by regions with larger ethnic minority populations, the study said.

Bush's 2001 No Child Left Behind Act was meant to introduce national standards to an education system where only two-thirds of teenagers graduate from high school, a proportion that slides to 50 percent for black Americans and Hispanics.

But instead of uniform standards, the policy has allowed various states to negotiate treaties and bargains to reduce the number of schools and districts identified as failing, said the study by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project.

"There's a very uneven effect. There are no clear uniform standards that are governing No Child Left Behind. If one state gets one thing, another state can do something else," the study's lead author, Gail Sunderman, said in an interview.

Download the report here.

Previous Comments

ID

104992

Comment

I have long believed that "No Child Left Behind" is one of the most racist laws that's ever been passed. And it proves that "racist" can also be bad for all kids of all races as well. You don't have to be one or the other.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-22T19:35:27-06:00

ID

104993

Comment

Donna, on this one I find myself a little torn. I worked this week with Peeples Middle School and Pecan Park Elementary, both of with have a literacy/reading program thanks to NCLB. In talking with the teachers and the children, the program is helping them to identify trouble areas and try to assist in correcting them. Marlena Walker, the teacher at Peeples, told me that she believes the project is a good one, but her problem is that the students because of personal situations move in and out of that neighborhood, thus interrupting their progresss. Today at Pecan Park Elementary I was told that the testing won't identify all the problems that might still exist since there will be students that did not have the privilege of being there the entire school year. Now both schools have mainly black students. I think if the parents help out---at least in these two situations--- that the NCLB has a chance.

Author

c a webb

Date

2006-02-24T21:23:29-06:00

ID

104994

Comment

NCLB wouldn't be a bad piece of legislation if it were funded. As it stands now, though, it's an unfunded mandate--which means that it tends to punish, rather than fix, underperforming schools. Meanwhile, wealthy, predominantly white districts are getting to write themselves out of the NCLB requirements. Those two problems would be solved by increased funding (90% of the problems in this country would be solved by increased education funding) and consistent application of NCLB standards--if it's a rule for low-income blacks, it should be a rule for high-income whites, too. But sure, NCLB definitely has potential, and as you point out here its effect on minority students is not across-the-board bad. It's just bad on average. NCLB is not beyond repair, but unless Bush revokes those damn tax cuts, I don't know where the money's going to come from. Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-02-24T23:38:18-06:00

ID

104995

Comment

NCLB wouldn't be a bad piece of legislation if it were funded. As someone who has been studying NCLB for a long time, I would say this is half true: It wouldn't be as bad if it were funded. The problem with it, though, is that it is designed to hurt public schools and to ultimately close them. Really. So it needs to be funded and revamped so that its underlying idea is not to simply reward "good" schools. That is, the funds need to be directed in a non-punitive way. I think it could be beyond repair because its foundation is so broken. It is very telling, btw, to go find the original language of what the Bushies wanted to understand what NCLB is about.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-25T10:40:04-06:00

ID

104996

Comment

However it happens, though, testing should be done for the primary (if not sole) purpose of identifying where the biggest problems are in order to put the most resources there. NCLB is designed to do the opposite.

Author

DonnaLadd

Date

2006-02-25T10:41:15-06:00