Subject: economically disadvantaged? What excactly does that mean? My quess was the amount of money their families make? And if my guess is correct, what the heck does that have to do with ones intelligence? Is the state saying poorer people are not as smart? AW

RESPONSE: Good questions, thank you. The tests in question here are not IQ (intelligence) tests. Rather, they are a tool to determine whether the material (math, reading, science) is being taught in a way that has our children learning. In the past, schools were able to manipulate their standing by keeping various groups out of their testing scores by labeling them learning disabled, or English as a Second Language...that can no longer be done under No Child Left Behind standards.

"Economically Disadvantaged" is one of a large number of sub groups that also include subgroups such as "Hispanic", "African-American", "Migrant", etc.; and each of these sub-groups if there are at least 20 students in the sub-group must meet the pass standard or the school gets a warning letter placing it and the community on notice that educators arn't doing a very good job. This is why such a large number of schools got these letters including Mullica's Middle School and Greater Egg Harbor Regional. Mullica's Elementary School did NOT; as it met the pass criteria in all sub-groups.

Children fall into the "economically disadvantaged" sub-group if they get a free lunch. And indeed that is based on a household income criteria. (Will post those income numbers in another posting.)

What is so interesting to note here is the large outcry from educators that the No Child Left Behind criteria is "unrealistic". That "blue ribbon schools" in many cases because of their failure in one of the sub-groups have been put on notice with an early warning letter and the claim is that is unfair. However the "disaggregated" policy (break down into sub-groups) allows a closer look and assessment of how are good school districts are doing in terms of educating children from a different background; Latino, African American, Economically Disadvantaged, Migrant, etc. This is a good tool for as John F Kennedy noted: A CHILD MISEDUCATED IS A CHILD LOST.

In particular, superintendents have said it "unfairly labels schools as failing after small groups such as ethnic minorities and special education students perform poorly on state tests." This is clearly nothing more than whining by educators who are failing our community and object to being held accountable...if not a so thinly veiled claim that black, brown and poor students are genetically incapable of learning. Lyndon Johnson said it best: EDUCATION IS NOT A PROBLEM. EDUCATION IS AN OPPORTUNITY.

We saw last month more than 100 African American and Latino school chiefs representing more than 3 million students holding a news conference under the banner of "Don't Turn Back the Clock," in support of the No Child Left Behind standards and break downs into sub-groups as a tool to focus where educators are failing us all.

This should be viewed as a tool, an insight for educators of where more emphasis, more resources need to be applied. As Marcus Tullius Cicero said: WHAT NOBLER EMPLOYMENT, OR MORE VALUABLE TO THE STATE, THAN THAT OF THE MAN WHO INSTRUCTS THE RISING GENERATION.