I'm not sure how I missed this Sacramento Bee opinion piece by Ruben Navarrette of the San Jose Mercury News. It was in yesterday's paper, but I didn't run across it until today when a colleague forwarded the Indianapolis Star which also carried the article.

In the article, Ruben takes to task the critics of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). He writes, "Made up of teachers, administrators, school board members and anyone who turns a blind eye to the mediocrity of public schools, the critics are relentless in their attempts to discredit the education reform law."

He sums up the critics position thusly:

It's easy to see why those who prefer the status quo detest No Child Left Behind. Under the law, children in every racial and demographic group in every public school must improve their scores on standardized tests in math and science. No excuses. Schools that fall short of that goal can be shut down, and their students can transfer to another public school.

The critics hate requirements like that for one reason - because good tests not only tell you if kids are learning, but also if teachers and administrators are holding up their end. If the truth comes out, disgruntled parents might go from demanding accountability from schools to demanding it from the individuals who work in them.

He argues that the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University is wrong in its claim that NCLB promotes racism. The critics demanded flexibility in the law and now that they've received it, they're claiming that the flexibility wasn't applied equally to all states. Because white, middle-class schools are better prepared to take advantage of the loopholds in the law, schools serving minority students are more likely to report poor test scores and are thus more likely to incur sanctions. That is how they feel that a law intended to help minority students is in fact racist.

Ruben doesn't agree. He writes:

That criticism is half-right. There is racism here, but not in the law. Rather, it is built into the educational system that the law seeks to reform.

It begins when a teaching corps that is three-fourths white approaches minority students with what President Bush calls the soft bigotry of low expectations. It continues as those teachers, at a loss to explain why these students don't do as well in school, cling to the racist assumption that minority parents don't value education. And, finally, it is compounded when those who want to preserve the status quo do everything they can to undermine testing - not to protect black and brown children, but to protect the adults who are disenfranchising them.

The No Child Left Behind law didn't create racism in education. But it just might be helpful in exposing it.

Once again, I conclude that Ruben get's it! He is my media person of the week with a clue!