The Thernstroms give a powerful, no-holds barred account of what the real problems
and solutions are in urban education.
Black and Hispanic students are not learning enough in our public schools. Their
typically poor performance is the most important source of ongoing racial inequality
in America today. Thus, say Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, the racial gap in
school achievement is the nation's most critical civil rights issue and an educational
crisis. It's no wonder that "No Child Left Behind," the 2001 revision of the Elementary
and Secondary Education Act, made closing the racial gap in education its central
goal.
An employer hiring the typical black high school graduate or the college that
admits the average black student is choosing a youngster who has only an eighth-grade
education. In most subjects, the majority of twelfth-grade black students do not
have even a "partial mastery" of the skills and knowledge that the authoritative
National Assessment of Educational Progress calls "fundamental for proficient
work" at their grade.
No Excuses marshals facts to examine the depth of the problem, the inadequacy of conventional
explanations, and the limited impact of Title I, Head Start, and other familiar
reforms. Its message, however, is one of hope: Scattered across the country are
excellent schools getting terrific results with high-needs kids. These rare schools
share a distinctive vision of what great schooling looks like and are free of
many of the constraints that compromise education in traditional public schools.
In a society that espouses equal opportunity we still have a racially identifiable
group of educational have-nots -- young African Americans and Latinos whose opportunities
in life will almost inevitably be limited by their inadequate education. When
students leave high school without high school skills, their futures -- and that
of the nation -- are in jeopardy. With successful schools already showing the
way, no decent society can continue to turn a blind eye to such racial and ethnic
inequality.
No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning