As help falls short, a child is left to struggle

Balloons were scattered. The children's shirts were adorned with fresh orchids. Hundreds of families were packed into the elementary school auditorium last June for fifth-grade graduation. Yet I felt a large void as I took my seat. Not all the fifth-graders I had tutored, and had grown to love, had made it.

One was Kimberly, a tall, shy, brown-eyed 12-year-old who lives with her mother, stepfather, and older sister in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It was hard celebrating the other children's fortune when I felt so deeply Kimberly's misfortune.

``It made me really sad that I couldn't graduate with my class," Kimberly told me. She is now nearly done with her second bid at fifth grade. I wonder if she'll graduate this spring. And if she doesn't, what then?

Her story is the story of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, legislation signed by President Bush in 2002 that was supposed to promote academic growth, largely through standardized testing.

Kimberly had never grasped basic mathematical concepts. She went from grade to grade, falling further behind, missing fundamental concepts in mathematics and language studies. She couldn't progress because she never had a foundation.

I invested two years in her education, as a tutor in Ms. Shaw-Murphy's class with New York University's America Reads program. But it's hard to teach kids when the average elementary class size is 34, as it is in Kimberly's district. Students left back -- 5 percent of New York City fifth-graders last year -- don't get the attention they need to catch up. In the name of leaving no child behind, many children are being not just left behind, but written off.

I was privileged to receive a top-notch public school education in my hometown of Braintree. My elementary and middle school offered me enrichment programs, advanced classes, and a rigorous curriculum. Later, I attended an all-girls Catholic high school. I was always pushed by my teachers to excel. If I didn't understand a lesson, they worked with me until I did. If I couldn't do something, they stood by until I succeeded.

My connection with Kimberly is much deeper than a tutor-student relationship. I see myself in her. She is willing to learn, as I was. She has big dreams, as I did. The only difference is that she lacks the guidance, support, and motivation I received.

Kimberly is part of a large achievement gap in public education. Materials are scarce in the overcrowded, aged building where she studies. Photocopies are a luxury, and pens and pencils are missing from the classrooms. The teachers scramble for paper towels and hoard them in cupboards. The libraries are filled with a mixture of antique books and glossy new books that the teachers buy themselves.

No matter how much I help Kimberly, it will not make up for the past seven years of education that has failed her.

I asked Kimberly about summer school. ``It was a waste of time," she said. ``We didn't really do any work. The teacher just gave us worksheets every day but she never corrected us or told us what we got wrong."

What about the free tutoring that theoretically exists for students in need? Kimberly thought she was eligible, but it wasn't available.

``What extra help did I get? Nothing -- I didn't get any. They just sent me to summer school," she said.

Instead, her family tried to hire a private tutor. ``Last year I had a tutor who came five days a week for a couple of hours, but it was costing my mother $30 an hour," she said. ``Then the tutor wanted $50 an hour and that was way too expensive." Now her sister Kiara, a seventh-grader, tutors her daily.

Kimberly tells me this in the hot, dimly lit classroom. I hear in her voice fear that she won't be able to catch up, and I find myself willing her to succeed, so that this June I will be able to pin a fresh orchid on her graduation dress.

Stephanie Wash of Braintree is a junior at New York University.