Experts debate validity.

In a showdown over No Child Left Behind, two education experts give their views. One says it's a do-or-die proposition for American schools, but another says it needs to go. The debate comes in part from the Economic Policy Institute's Web site and began with an article in The New Republic by Robert Gordon. It also includes an excerpt from Richard Eothstein's book Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (Teachers College Press, 2004.) www.epi.org

Pro NCLB 

Robert Gordon, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, believes NCLB "is the sort of law liberals once dreamed about." NCLB requires a form of affirmative action where states must show that minority and poor students are proficient. And studies of high-poverty and high achieving schools show high expectations are critical for good results.

In a 2006 excerpt, Gordon says that for decades, the nation took Rothstein's and others' advice and rejected firm learning goals for children. Schools asked and expected little from poor and minority children. So when schools did badly, politicians said, "We understand." He adds that Rothstein unfairly suggests it is "impractical" to ask every child to be proficient in math and reading by any date. "In my view, no human being can know what children could achieve in the distant future if we remain committed to improving our schools."

He adds that Rothstein says "NCLB fosters cynicism in public educators who feel they cannot" fulfill the law. "Whatever cynicism NCLB now fosters in some adults, abandoning meaningful expectations would foster a more destructive cynicism in both adults and children."

The greatest challenges for reauthorization include supporting improved assessment ideally through developing voluntary national standards and encouraging rigorous growth models.

NCLB SHOWDOWN Robert Gordon, left, faces off with Richard Rothstein over the merits and challenges of the 2001 federal mandate that faces reauthorization.

Con NCLB

Richard Rothstein, research associate at the Economic Policy Institute, claims NCLB is so flawed that it's unfixable. Many schools have narrowed achievement gaps. "But because a 'challenging' standard of proficiency, as NCLB requires, is impossible for all students, who come to school bearing the consequences of gross social and economic inequalities that affect their abilities to learn, NCLB invites states to game the system by redefining low levels of achievement as 'proficient,' by focusing primarily on children just below the proficiency point, and by dropping important subjects from the curriculum to concentrate on test preparation."

But when some schools serving disadvantaged students still fall short of the NCLB goal, they will be labeled as failures. "The inevitable result must be cynicism on the part of educators who know, but are afraid to say publicly, that they cannot, even with Herculean classroom efforts, truly raise the average achievement of disadvantaged children to typical middle-class levels."

Problems for high poverty and minority students range from a lack of health services to housing instability.

Rothstein advocates high-quality early childhood programs, addressing social and economic inequalities, and after-school and summer programs that provide enrichment.