PPT Slide
The belief that all students can learn to high standards is not difficult to embrace. One need only look at some recent examples from Kentucky* – and there are schools like these across the country – to realize that poverty does not determine whether or not students can learn. Yet, unless we hold schools accountable for ensuring that all of their students meet the standards in all subjects within 10 years, we will perpetuate the notion that students lucky enough to live in more affluent areas deserve educational opportunities in the full range of curriculum, from science and languages to the history and the arts, while it is enough that only a few students in the poorest schools are able to read and perform basic math skills. The students in our nation deserve better than that.
* On the 1998 Kentucky Instructional Results Information System test, Wrigley Elementary School, which is 82.8% low-income (free and reduced price lunch eligible), scored the third highest of all schools in the state on the reading portion of the test. The top three scoring schools in science had over 75% low-income students. Two of the top five scoring schools in writing had over 80% low-income students, and four of the top five had over 50% low-income students. “Some Schools Beat Poverty,” Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY, Thursday, April 8, 1999, page B2.