The Texas Miracle Revisited
Dear Deborah,
I am sure you recall that when No Child Left Behind was under discussion, there was a great deal of publicity about "the Texas Miracle." I remember newspaper accounts of the wonders that had been accomplished by the simple strategy of testing and accountability.
Soon after the election of George W. Bush as president, we learned that he was the architect of this miracle in Texas. The miracle occurred because of this strategy: the state tested every child every year in grades 3-8; disaggregated their scores by race, ethnicity, and other characteristics; published the scores; and then honored the schools where scores went up and shamed the schools where they did not. Mirabile dictu, it worked! Or so a credulous press told us. Test scores went up, graduation rates went up, and the achievement gap began to close.
A few scholars warned that the miracle was an illusion. Walt Haney of Boston College and Stephen Klein of the