If the students in U.S. schools with 25 to 49.9 percent poverty constituted a
nation, it would rank fourth among the 35 countries in the study. Only in
schools where the poverty level exceeded 75 percent did the score fall below the
international average.

NCLB’s greatest absurdity derives from the demand that schools alone wipe out
the achievement gap. As economist Richard Rothstein observes in Class and
Schools: “We can make big strides in narrowing the student
achievement gap, but only by directing greater attention to economic and social
reforms that narrow the differences in background characteristics with which
children come to school. . . . If the nation can’t close the gaps in income,
health and housing, there is little prospect of equalizing achievement.”

I have never believed that this law is the idealistic, well-intentioned but
poorly executed program that many claim it to be. NCLB aims to shrink the public
sector, transfer large sums of public money to the private sector, weaken or
destroy two Democratic power bases—the teachers unions—and provide vouchers to
let students attend private schools at public expense. The original proposal,
and each subsequent presidential budget, provided for vouchers, but Congress has
thus far removed these provisions.

Poverty and Literacy in U.S. Schools