During the past decade, an enormous shift in educational philosophy has impacted Arizona’s public schools. With the election in 1995 of Lisa Graham Keegan as the Superintendent of Public Instruction for Arizona, and later George W. Bush to the White House, we were told and shown that local control no longer ruled the land. Accountability, higher standards, and high-stakes assessment — monitored by the state and federal government, of course – were the new philosophy. And, if we chose not to get on board, there would be consequences.

In all honesty, and without the typical politician’s spin, this methodology brought with it both positive and negative effects. A number of our public schools, including those that served high minority and English-language learner populations, certainly did need some prodding to improve and this reform helped. On the other hand, any system that oversimplifies success into a single assessment score or two is liable to cause harm —whether by neglecting areas not assessed or by encouraging higher scores at any cost.

There is no question that this belief in higher standards has brought with it the good, the bad and the ugly.

That said, those of us who work in public schools are doing our best to make accountability work. We are searching for more effective ways to educate our students and get the results asked of us. In some cases this is done with the help of caring, involved parents. Other times, this is done seemingly with no cooperation whatsoever. But we keep searching, working and teaching so that these students that we truly care about can be successful. “No Child Left Behind” is not just the name of a law to us. It is a career goal.

But as we work so hard in this new system to improve our schools, a nagging question remains: If higher standards and accountability are demanded of our teachers and schools, shouldn’t it be demanded in other areas as well?

For example, four Mexican immigrants from Phoenix recently amazed the country when they won a national robotics competition, defeating university teams as prestigious as the one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. However, these winning students discovered that their hopes and obvious qualifications for a university education were of little value in a system that prevents them from qualifying for financial aid or gaining access to in-state tuition rates, effectively preventing from going to college. Now, thanks to an article in Wired magazine, these four received enough publicity to help them, but that doesn’t solve the bigger problem here.

This problem is also reflected in the pressure currently being placed on state schools chief Tom Horne to investigate if some students attending public school in Ajo are actually American citizens. The concern here is expressed as “abuse of taxpayer money” — but isn’t there another concern about those children receiving a decent education?

Any parent faced with a similar situation would do the same thing and send their children across the border. What parent wouldn’t want the very best opportunities for their children? Do we, as a society, really care more about the political intricacies of this situation than we care about these children for whom this may be their only opportunity at a better future?

Our country since its inception has been, at least in theory, about the possibility of rags-to-riches success. But this Horatio Alger mythology apparently has no place in Arizona today. As those Carl Hayden High School students discovered, achievement is no guarantee of success in our state. Further, as the Ajo students may soon find out, opportunity is only for some. Now, granted, this is a complicated financial issue that should involve discussion among our state and the federal governments of the U.S. and Mexico, but to simply dismiss the education of these children as an “abuse” is unacceptable.

Accountability and higher standards do apply to schools, but they also apply to compassion, morality and how a society treats people. All of these children deserve a chance. And, until they have one, we cannot honestly claim to be even attempting to leave no child behind.

John Scudder is an elementary school principal in Glendale. Lance Huffman is a high school teacher in Tolleson. Mr. Scudder can be reached at scudpolitics@msn.com, and Mr. Huffman can be reached at lancehuffman@ cox.net.