Our schools are bad. Our students' scores on international tests are mediocre.

Students from well-funded schools who come from high-income families score outscore all or nearly all other countries on international tests. Only our children in high poverty schools score below the international average (Payne and Biddle, 1999; Bracey, 2009; Martin, 2009) The US has the highest percentage of children in poverty of all industrialized countries (25%, compared to Denmark's 3%). Our educational system has been successful; the problem is poverty.

THE TREATMENT: NATIONAL STANDARDS, NATIONAL TESTS

The Department of Education has made the standards movement its number one priority, has already planned to spend billions on the standards and has planned to spend much more on national tests.

The wrong priority

The first priority should not be new standards and tests but should be reducing poverty. As just noted, the US has the highest rate of child poverty of all industrialized countries. Poverty has a huge impact. Studies confirm that hunger, poor diet and lack of reading material seriously affect academic performance. When all our children have the advantages that children from high-income families have, our schools will be considered the best in the world.

A suggestion

A good start is strengthening school libraries in high poverty areas: Children in the deepest levels of poverty have the lowest reading test scores, and also have very little access to books in the home, in school, and in their communities. Study after study confirms that increased access to books results in more reading and more reading results in better literacy development (research reviewed in Krashen, 2004). A one-time investment in school libraries of about $26 million would generate enough money in the form of annual interest to make sure all children have access to books forever. (The current NCLB federal budget is $26 billion).

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