In response to Nadia:

I totally agree that standardizing curricula, encouraging core knowledge for ALL people (and ALL socioeconomic groups, for that matter), and accountability to make sure these standards are met is a great way to level the playing field. From what I understand, No Child Left Behind was set into motion with those same ideals - have a standard curriculum, rely on assessments to enforce those standards, and provide financial incentives (i.e., federal funding) to those schools that buy into the whole program.

It sounds like a great plan in theory, but I can also see why so many people complain about NCLB. Who gets to decide what this "core curriculum" is? Are the tests fair - are they ACTUALLY testing learning constructs from the core curriculum (or are they testing cultural knowledge, mastery of english, etc)? Are students actually learning or are they drilling and drilling for hours to learn how to take tests? And after all is said and done, is this core curriculum even accomplishing the goals of education - do we want our students to know the place values of decimals, or is it more important for them to know the basic parts of an engine?

Very cool. There's a study that found the greatest in-school predictor of academic success/learning gains is teacher quality, which seems to be backed up by the study you found. Some reformers take that finding, though, and think that the way to fix all the problems in education is to focus on teachers... pay them more, fire the bad ones, up the qualifications for teacher certification, etc.

I don't think anyone is AGAINST improving pedagogy. However, that study found that the greatest IN-SCHOOL predictor is teacher quality. Teachers may have the biggest impact as far as in-school factors go, but they're still only responsible for at most 10% of learning gains. 60% of academic success, on the other hand, was predicted by NON-SCHOOL factors like family income, SES, etc. It's hard to pin what the problem is (or come to solutions, for that matter) when there are so many non-school factors out there!

In the discussion of this study, the author says "it could be argued that the low socioeconomic child may have an increased risk for exhibiting performance-oriented behavior." Yes sir - low SES students broadly speaking don't perform well on standardized tests (for any number of reasons), so everyone pressures them to improve their performance and they're drilling all day, err day, and all of a sudden their motivation isn't intrinsic anymore...? I'd like to see a study over the past 10-15 years with a group of low SES students to see if the high-stakes tests that came with No Child Left Behind had any effect on intrinsic vs. performance-based motivation. Apparently, I think so!

The Children in Room E4 tracks the Sheff v. O'Neill lawsuit of 1989. Civil rights lawyers argued that students from urban neighborhoods were being systematically disadvantaged by the education system compared to students from more affluent, suburban districts. The racial and economic segregation between urban and suburban districts denied urban students the basic right to an education. In his opening statement, John Brittain compared the disparities and racial segregation between urban Hartford and white suburban schools to South African apartheid.

Along the same lines, Florida passed a plan in October 2012 to adjust academic goals according to students' race. Proponents of the plan assert that "not every group is starting from the same point and [goals] are meant to be ambitious but realistic" while opponents argue that "dumb[ing] down the expectations for one group, that seems a little unfair."

http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2012/10/12/florida-passes-plan-for-racially-based-academic-goals/