Skip to main content

Mobile Navigation

  • National
    • Policy
      • High Expectations
      • Quality Choices
      • Personalized Pathways
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Gadfly Newsletter
      • Flypaper Blog
    • Events
    • Scholars Program
  • Ohio
    • Policy
      • Priorities
      • Media & Testimony
    • Research
    • Commentary
      • Ohio Education Gadfly Biweekly
      • Ohio Gadfly Daily
  • Charter Authorizing
    • Application
    • Sponsored Schools
    • Resources
  • About
    • Mission
    • Board
    • Staff
    • Career
Home
Home
Advancing Educational Excellence

Main Navigation

  • National
  • Ohio
  • Charter Authorizing
  • About

National Menu

  • Topics
    • Accountability & Testing
    • Advanced Education
    • Career & Technical Education
    • Charter Schools
    • Curriculum & Instruction
    • ESSA
    • Evidence-Based Learning
    • Facilities
    • Governance
    • Personalized Learning
    • Private School Choice
    • School Finance
    • Standards
    • Teachers & School Leaders
    • Think Again
  • Research
  • Commentary
    • Gadfly Newsletter
    • Flypaper Blog
    • Gadfly Podcast
  • Events
  • Scholars Program

One is the loneliest number

12.22.2011

After dividing the entire school into subgroups, as demanded by the No Child Left Behind act, officials at Marsteller Middle School in Passaic, New York, discovered that only seventh grader Jimmy Patterson, 13, did not fall within one of the 83 categories identified by the district. "What can I say?" said one school official. "We have 35 left-handed Khmers and a passel of tone-deaf Aussies. And plenty more. Jimmy just doesn't fit anywhere else, so I guess he's the majority." Patterson, son of local insurance agent James and homemaker Martha Patterson, is described by his teachers as "more white-bread than a watercress sandwich." The Passaic Currant reports that the teenager enjoys baseball, apple pie, and X-Box. The Fordham Foundation's Chester Finn lauded Patterson's designation, saying, "It's about time that the administration at Marsteller stopped hiding the school's learning gap behind Jimmy's average test scores."

"Caucasian child is school majority," Passaic Currant, March 26, 2004, http://www.thesmokinggun.com/mugshots/gatesmug1.html

Tags: Chester E. Finn, Jr.
Fordham Logo

© 2026 The Thomas B. Fordham Institute
Privacy Policy
Usage Agreement

National

P.O. Box 110
Burke, VA 22009

202.223.5452

[email protected]

Ohio

P.O. Box 82291
Columbus, OH 43202

614.223.1580

[email protected]

Sponsorship

130 West Second Street, Suite 410
Dayton, Ohio 45402

937.227.3368

[email protected]