The New York Times has a very interesting story about one overlooked but increasingly important aspect of President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” plan. In general terms, the plan mandates that schools must equalize outcomes on standardized tests for all students in each grade in upcoming years.

Critics have blasted it as unfair and arbitrary in its equalization goal, that it provides little increase in funding to meet those goals, and that it places too much emphasis on studying for standardized tests, etc. But the Times article notes that one side effect of the plan that has pleasantly surprised many of its critics is that schools are now increasingly devoting more resources to helping low-achieving students of color:

Spurred by President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, educators across the nation are putting extraordinary effort into improving the achievement of minority students, who lag so sharply that by 12th grade, the average black or Hispanic student can read and do arithmetic only as well as the average eighth-grade white student. . .

Even critics acknowledge that the requirement that schools release scores categorized by students’ race and ethnic group has obliged educators to work harder to narrow the achievement gap. . . , Some academics are skeptical that the gap, a measurable condition of American education since the advent of standardized testing at midcentury, will narrow significantly in response to any short-term policy shift.

“There’s nothing right now to suggest that nationally we’ve begun to invest in poor children at the levels that would lead to widespread improvement in math and reading skills of black and Hispanic children,” said Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Still, he said, lots of educators are trying.

I have to be honest and admit that I was not aware of this particular aspect of the NCLB plan. I guess you learn something new everyday -- certain aspects of Bush’s policies may have beneficial consequences for people of color. How about that . . .