A bet on No Child Left Behind
This was written by Richard Rothstein, a research associate at theEconomic Policy Institute, a non-profit organization created in 1986 to broaden the discussion about economic policy to include the interests of low- and middle-income workers. This appeared on the institute’s website.
By Richard Rothstein
Diane Ravitch is a glass half-empty kind of gal, while I suffer from excessive Panglossian tendencies. In the spring of 2007, we made a bet. The payoff is dinner at the River Café, at the foot of Brooklyn Heights, overlooking New York harbor and the Manhattan skyline, tucked neatly under the lights of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Four and a half years ago, we surveyed the damage being done to American education by NCLB, the No Child Left Behind iteration of the
