"Proficiency for All": An oxymoron

 While the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation requires that all students achieve proficiency on challenging standards by 2014, a new paper by Richard Rothstein, Rebecca Jacobsen, and Tamara Wilder concludes that there is no date by which all (or even nearly all) students in any subgroup can reach this goal. The authors say that no goal can simultaneously be challenging to and achievable by all students across the entire achievement distribution. Even the highest scoring countries in the world cannot meet this standard, they say. The paper was presented at a symposium at Columbia University. For further information, read the full report.