NYTimes.com | What it takes to make a student

by Paul Tough
November 26, 2006

An outstanding article summarizing recent US studies (and related school reform efforts) centring on the ways in which apparently social-class- and race-related gaps in pupil achievement mask an array 'non-cognitive' factors such as conduct and family environments. '[I]f poor students are going to catch up, they will require not the same education that middle-class children receive but one that is considerably better; they need more time in class than middle-class students, better-trained teachers and a curriculum that prepares them psychologically and emotionally, as well as intellectually, for the challenges ahead of them. ... Right now, of course, they are not getting more than middle-class students; they are getting less.'