This letter to the editor by Secretary Margaret Spellings appeared in The Wall Street Journal on July 31, 2006.

In my time as secretary of education, I have discussed No Child Left Behind with thousands of parents all around the country, and not one has ever volunteered his or her child to be left behind. Critics of the law are always much quicker to write off "other" people's children, just as Charles Murray did in his July 25 editorial-page commentary "Acid Tests."

President Bush and I believe we must not—and will not—settle until every child in this country, regardless of race or income, can read and do math at grade level. Mr. Murray says this places too much emphasis on raising the scores of our "least talented" students. I disagree. And so do the parents of the hundreds of thousands of more children now reading and doing math at grade level.

These are exactly the students we should focus on helping—minority and low-income students who were once shuffled from grade to grade without anyone taking accountability for what they learned. Over the past four and a half years, No Child Left Behind has forced us to confront what President Bush calls the soft bigotry of low expectations.

And the results of last year's National Assessment of Educational Progress, better known as the Nation's Report Card, confirm what we are seeing in states across the country. Minority students are now leading the way with some of the biggest gains, and the achievement gap is closing. In other words, No Child Left Behind is working for students.

Mr. Murray may find it "meaningless" to hear more students than ever before are reading and doing math at grade level, but it means something very real for these children who now have the skills to succeed in school and in life. And we all have a stake in making sure every child has that chance.

Margaret Spellings
Secretary of Education
Washington