Andy Rotherham at Eduwonk puts in context today’s piece in the New York Times that describes how U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan overestimated the number of America’s schools that would fail the benchmarks set up by No Child Left Behind. Sec. Duncan had estimated that 82% of schools would fail this year; in fact, only 43% did. Notes Rotherham,

[W]hen you look at the data is 48 percent of schools missing targets really all that surprising? Plenty of good schools, of course, but let’s see, six in ten minority students not finishing high school, 8 percent of low-income students getting a B.A. by age 24, four grade-level gaps in achievement on the NAEP by high school, poor outcomes for kids in special education programs and students whose first language is not English…And all those students are not concentrated into just a few schools, these issues affect all communities. So is anyone seriously surprised that a lot of schools need to do better? The No Child law’s accountability system needs to be modified, of course, – it’s almost a decade old – but don’t shoot the messenger too much and don’t let the problems with the law obscure the underlying context about what’s happening in our schools to too many kids.