The Elephant in the Living Room

Abstract

poor," "their parents don't care," "they come to school without an adequate breakfast," and "they live in difficult neighborhoods." As a profession, edu cation has gotten so good at pointing the finger of blame that, instead of hearing these claims as the excuses they are, much of the public has come to accept them as fact. Poor kids, in other words, perform at lower levels because they are poor. Likewise, black or Latino kids perform at lower lev els because they are black or Latino (and because they are also dispropor tionately poor). No wonder folks around the country are shaking their heads in disbelief at the new federal mandate to close gaps between groups over time. They simply do not believe it is possible. And education leaders are shockingly outspoken on the subject. "They may as well have decreed that pigs can fly," said the president of one state's teachers association.1 "I have difficulty with the standards because they're so unattainable for so many of our students_We just don't have the same kids they have on Long Island or Orchard Park," said a New York district superintendent.2 Research undoubtedly fed this view. Large-scale studies such as the Cole man Report issued in 1966 told the nation that schools contributed little to students' academic achievement as compared with families.3 More recent research, however, has turned these understandings upside down. Some things that schools do matter greatly in whether students learn, or whether they do not. And the thing that matters most is good teaching. 229