We Can Overcome Poverty's Impact on School Success

By Michael A. Rebell and Jessica R. Wolff

In passing the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, Congress stated that one of the law's main purposes was closing the achievement gap between disadvantaged children and their better-off peers by ensuring that all students in the United

States would be proficient in meeting challenging academic standards by 2014.

But, over the past 10 years, we have made only incremental progress toward reaching that goal. There has been some small gain in 4th grade reading and math scores, but no gain whatsoever in 8th grade scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, and significant achievement gaps remain between students from different...