The one success of No Child Left Behind hailed by folks across the political spectrum is the law's requirement that states collect data on student achievement according to race, class, and English language-learner status. This policy shines a light on the achievement gap that is impossible to ignore, offering up terrifying statistics such as the fact that white high school seniors are, on average, four years ahead of their African American peers in reading and math. But it has long been an issue that multiracial students had to choose just one box to check when identifying their race: either Hispanic or non-Hispanic; either black, white, or Asian. Today the Washington Post outlines new Department of Education rules that ask states, beginning in 2010, to allow students to check as many boxes as apply to their racial and ethnic identities. And while children and families may feel better about accurately representing their background, civil rights groups are concerned that the new policy will once again obscure the achievement gap, with schools having considerable latitude in how they report test score results according to race. For example, all students who identify as "Hispanic" will be classified that way, regardless of their race or native language. An early test of the new system found that the number of students counted as "Hispanic" rose, leading to higher reading scores for the group. Meanwhile, with black/white biracial students counted in a separate "multiracial" category, scores for "black" students went down. It seems that the only way to preserve NCLB's diagnostic rigor under this new system is to require states to break out scores for the most common multiracial identities, such as black/white, black/Hispanic, white/Hispanic, and white/Native American. Without that specificity, it will become more difficult to assess how race and language identities affect students' opportunities and achievement. --Dana Goldstein
