Throughout the decade since the implementation of No Child Left Behind, the accountability reform movement has been driven by two powerful and connected narratives: claims of"miracle" schools posed as models for reform and "no excuses" ideologies that contend "miracle" schools exist because of the re-doubled effort of those who will not accept poverty as an excuse.
I have been detailing for several years now that essential problems exist within these claims and perspectives:
• "Miracle" schools almost always are exposed as less than they are manufactured by media and advocate accounts (see the miracle school wiki for a centralized cataloguing of that phenomenon). In fact, close analysis of claims regarding "high flying" schools has shown that only 1.1% of high-poverty schools do in fact fly high.
• Arguing that "miracle" schools can and should serve as templates for systemic public school reform rarely confronts two problems: (1) outliers by their nature are atypical, and thus outliers for a reason (suggesting that normalizing an outlier may be an act of futility), and (2) even when schools are confirmed as high flying, rarely are the causational elements in that succes
