'Proficiency for All' - An Oxymoron” ?

"No goal can simultaneously be challenging to and achievable by all students across the entire achievement distribution.  A standard can either be a minimal standard which presents no challenge to typical and advanced students, or it can be a challenging standard which is unachievable by most below-average students"
(" 'Proficiency for All' - An Oxymoron," Economic Policy Institute, Rotherstein, Jacobson, & Wilder, 2006). http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_viewpoints_nclb20061114/  


This statement is difficult for many to acknowledge.  Some  have convinced themselves that a statistical improbability (impossibility?) that "all students will pass expanded and more challenging learning goals.  It is their mantra. For others, this statement is politically confrontational.  They are already committed to a political agenda based, at least superficially, upon that statement.  


Yet others put forward and defend the "all can learn" mantra for purely self-serving interests.  They need the public to believe this is possible, so they can blame public schools for not achieving that goal and then replace those public schools with non-profit (but very lucrative) or for-profit charter schools.  And finally, there are others who desperately want to believe that they can accomplish this goal and, therefore, provide millions of kids with opportunities they don't now have.  Their primarily altruistic intentions, however, face the same reality check as the other three groups.  


I urge you to read about this report and apply it’s conclusions to education reform laws and proposals in Washington State.   Rotherstein, Jacobsen, & Wilder make a powerful argument against building education reform policies around such flawed presumptions.